CEJUG: Commitment with My Homeland

At the beginning of 2010 I was in Brazil prospecting jobs and I couldn’t find anyone that would use the knowledge that I had produced in the last 4 years. Then I started thinking about writing a project to submit to Brazilian investors. I did, but it seems that most of investments have been redirected to oil (they just found a large oil reserve in the cost of Rio de Janeiro) , sports (Brazil will host the World Cup 2014 and Olympic Games 2016) and city services (IBM kind of changed governments’ minds with that idea of Smarter Planet). As a consequence, other studies have almost no chance if not related to those subjects, and, of course, if you don’t invite project evaluators for a dinner, your project will probably be forgotten.

I also tried to become a professor in my hometown, since a PhD title would help me to achieve that. To get a good salary we have to work for public universities but there was no vacancies at the time. Some opportunities were available in other states like São Paulo, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, but my State is Ceará and I would love to contribute for its development. I kept searching until finding vacancies in private universities, but the salaries were very low and it would force me to work day and night to get a fair total income. No way!!!

When the idea of returning to Brazil was getting too difficult, I started looking for opportunities in Europe. With a bit of luck and a nice CV, I started a job as a software architect and it has been very exciting and rewarding so far. At the same time, the feeling that I was abandoning my country just for personal reasons has been always present. I’m currently helping Europe to better face technological challenges (that’s what a software architect usually does in an organization) while Brazil is still struggling with poverty, big social differences, and poorly educated people. I cannot accept that because Brazil, with all its problems, was responsible for my education and my qualifications. If I like the person I became, I certainly like the place where I was educated and the people who educated me.

To have peace of mind and no regrets, I’ve built a way that my staying in Europe, at least for a while, doesn’t imply in abandoning my homeland. I’m actually investing my free time to co-lead the Ceara Java User Group (CEJUG), helping on the technical education of Ceara’s developer community. By doing this, I’m contributing to change the life of students and professionals there for better. The more knowledge we produce and share, the better will become the technology created there, increasing the competitiveness of the local software industry, which implies in more jobs and more valuable products.

Actually, I have been doing it for a while. I’m just dedicating more time than usual now. My current project is the development of a web application to manage the user group. I believe this is the first initiative of developing such kind of application so far. At least, I’m part of the international Jug Leader community and I never heard about one before. By the way, its first version is already in production. There are so many positive things about this new application that it deserves an exclusive post. That’s what I’m going to do next. Wait for it!