In the late 1990s, Recife, on Brazil’s northeastern coast, was in decline. Its picturesque historic center, made up of 17th century colonial buildings with Dutch, Portuguese, and French influences, had plunged into neglect, reflecting a deep economic crisis worsened by deindustrialization. Many young people were fleeing the city for opportunities in the commercial centers of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, or heading overseas. Something had to change.

In 2000, a group of businesspeople, government officials, and academics came up with a vision to regenerate Recife's historic center by building a new technology district. With 33 million reais ($6.8 million) raised from the privatization of the local electricity company, they created Porto Digital, a nonprofit organization with the mission of turning Recife into a hub for technology and the creative industries. The plan—a “daring way of showing São Paulo there was intelligent life in the northeast,” according to Claudio Marinho, an urban engineer who was one of the masterminds behind the Porto Digital strategy—was more radical than just a tech park, though.

Marinho incorporated concepts seen in cities like Paris, such as “walkability,” which means people shouldn't have to walk for more than 15 minutes to reach the main ecosystem venues such as offices, bars, and cultural spaces to work and socialize. The planning emphasizes “casual, fortunate encounters and serendipity,” he says. “Such situations make the overflow of knowledge much more likely and, of course, business gets done.”

The world is littered with ambitious tech hub projects that set out to revive and reinvigorate cities that have lost their purpose. The recipe is often the same: some token government support, some tax incentives, and a lot of PR. Many—probably most—fail. But nearly a quarter century after it was launched, Porto Digital has turned Recife into a bona fide center for Brazil’s emerging tech and creative economy sectors, with more than 350 residents , from global players to cutting-edge startups. The industry employs more than 17,000 people, many of whom have emerged from the local university, the Federal University of Pernambuco, which boasts one of Brazil's top-rated computer science courses. Now the hub is looking to the future again, hoping to capitalize on its successes to lead the line for Brazil in new areas of innovation, such as generative artificial intelligence.

“Porto Digital has never stopped growing, but we want to significantly grow the number of people working in tech in Recife in the coming years. We also want our companies to generate most of their revenue outside the northeast, and preferably outside Brazil,” says Silvio Meira, one of the founding fathers and president of the board of the tech park, and a professor emeritus at the Federal University of Pernambuco.

The core idea behind Porto Digital is “triple helix collaboration,” which is about bringing government, academia, and businesses together to drive societal change.

One of the initiative’s founding institutions is the Recife Centre for Advanced Studies and Systems, known as Cesar, which conducts research for some of Brazil's largest companies and has its own higher education institution, with courses focused on technology, design, and business. The center has also been a breeding ground for some of the leading startups born in Recife, having supported more than 220 new businesses over the past few years.