Armínio Fraga and Fernanda Scovino are the guests at the Aula Magna

20/2/2025

To inspire and motivate students, IMPA Tech kicks off the semester with the Aula Magna. Armínio Fraga, former president of the Central Bank of Brazil and founding partner of Gávea Investimentos, and Fernanda Scovino, general coordinator of data governance at the Ministry of Education and co-founder of Base dos Dados, are the guests. The meeting will take place on the first day of classes, March 17, at 1:30 pm, in the auditorium of Porto Maravalley.

The Aula Magna will be the first activity for the 100 young people from all over Brazil approved in the 2025 selection process. Students from the 2024 class, who will begin the new cycle of emphases in March, will also take part in the lectures.

“IMPA Tech’s vision is focused on the role of mathematics in the world around us and in solving its problems. The personal and professional careers of the speakers at Aula Magna 2025, Armínio Fraga and Fernanda Scovino, beautifully embody this vision,” said Marcelo Viana, director-general of IMPA, who will open the event to introduce the guests and welcome the students.

“Challenges and opportunities for Brazil” is the theme of the talk by Armínio Fraga, who will share his experiences at the Central Bank and Gávea Investimentos with the teenagers. Fraga is one of the country’s most influential economists and has published in the areas of international finance, macroeconomics and monetary policy. He was president of the Central Bank from 1999 until 2003, when he founded Gávea Investimentos. The company currently operates as an independent asset manager with a focus on emerging markets.

Fernanda Scovino will discuss the influence of data on her career in her talk “From university to government: my journey with data and purpose”. Throughout her career, Fernanda was a data analyst at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s Center for Technology and Society and data and innovation coordinator at Rio de Janeiro City Hall. In 2019, she was one of the founders of Base dos Dados, a project that seeks to facilitate access to quality public data in an accessible, connected and cataloged way. Base dos Dados works as a single search engine with the main information from hundreds of open datasets and a public data lake with processed and updated databases, ready for analysis.

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