Rio 2016 Servers Find New Home in Sao Paulo Schools

(ATR)Cisco’s Brazilian division tellsAround the Rings that "software and enterprise servers" provided for the 2016 Rio Games will now be used in Sao Paulo public schools under the name of Olympic legacy.

Questions were raised afterO Globoreported on Tuesday that São Paulo mayor João Doria's spoke at an event in New York City that Cisco was donating $99.4 million in computers for his city. (The donation was true, but computers they were not.)Doria, a political outsider, is seen as a firebrand for privatization of municipal services in São Paulo and spoke when receiving a "Person of the Year" award.

So why didn't the equipment end up in Rio de Janeiro? This is the story of how it did not.

Rodrigo Uchoa, Director of Business for Digital Transformation at Cisco, worked as the head of the company's efforts at the Rio 2016 Olympics. Cisco served as a supplier for the Games, winning a contract more than four years ago. Uchoa said to ATR that at no point did Cisco provide any computers for the Olympics, focusing only on software and servers.

Cisco’s bid to become an Olympics supplier included provisions for "sustainability and legacy," through supporting education programs in the country. How that would be done was not known at the time, and Uchoa admitted that the software and servers provided were expected to be packed up and shipped back to the United States to be resold.

A Brazilian law signed in 2013 stipulated benefits Olympic suppliers and sponsors could receive for bringing goods into the country and distributing them after the Games. In order to protect Olympic legacy, goods from sponsors could only be donated to registered social and sport programs and other official government entities.

"Cisco received many requests and proposals to discuss projects because everyone in Brazil was aware of the benefits that the country provided to the sponsors," Uchoa said. "They were aware that after the Olympics that one of the possibilities was donating equipment or any infrastructure used."

It was after the Paralympics left town that Uchoa said Cisco received numerous proposals for its equipment.

Rio Balks At Equipment

It would make sense that Rio de Janeiro would want to capitalize as much as possible on Olympic legacy given it served as the Games’ host.

Throughout the Games’ construction, former Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes linked the Olympics to the first time the Brazilian Federal Government provided assistance to the city following moving the country’s capital to Brasilia in the 1960's. Paes, and IOC President Thomas Bach, repeatedly used the analogy to extol a "transformational" legacy in the city.

A spokesperson for the current mayor, Marcelo Crivella, said that the current administration was "not consulted" on the possibility of receiving the equipment.

Crivella's spokesperson said Eduardo Paes’ administration did a feasibility study on bidding for the Cisco equipment for Rio de Janeiro schools.

The study, done by IplanRio, said it would cost $75.3 million to install the networks "in the areas of education and health". An additional $14.42 million would be required for upkeep, and the networks would require Cisco software, the Crivella spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Eduardo Paes gave ATR the same information when asked for comment on the study. The spokesperson did not return requests for comment on how Paes felt about the equipment ending up in São Paulo.

São Paulo Swoops In

Uchoa said that he had no knowledge of the feasibility report that the Rio municipal government produced. He said that even though the equipment was donated elsewhere, many projects Cisco worked on during and after the Games were based in Rio de Janeiro.

"Let’s make this very clear. Cisco was approached by many, many organizations and projects were presented to us," Uchoa added.

One of those organizations was the Secretary of Education for the city of São Paulo. The branch of the municipal government wanted to bolster its "Digital Education Lab" project which helps to educate young students on different digital technologies.

The request fit with the requirements for where Olympic suppliers’ equipment could go and Cisco was impressed with the pitch. Uchoa called it "a really important and relevant project to the schools" in São Paulo.

On May 11 a ceremony in São Paulo officially presented the equipment for use in São Paulo schools. A São Paulo municipal (SECOM) spokesperson told ATR that 640,000 students and 46,000 teachers in 1,065 schools around the city will benefit from the equipment. The city will receive 18,600 "connectivity platforms and security solutions, such as servers, access points, Wi-Fi structures, switches and routers."

Unlike the Rio feasibility study, the SECOM spokesperson says that the city will actually add $96.2 million in the city’s coffers by acquiring the equipment this way.

"A study produced by Prodam shows costs of about $12.8 million for the installation and maintenance of the connectivity platform, which will take one year,"the spokesperson said toATR. "Installation and maintenance costs will be made possible through partnerships and donations."

The spokesperson did not return requests for comment on which organizations would be partnering or donating to help with the installation costs.

As the equipment finds a new home, Uchoa says he could not be happier with the arrangement. He believes that the donation shows that the 2016 Olympics were for all of Brazil and programs like this make good on that promise.

"This process has not finished and we are not providing all the equipment to the schools in São Paulo," Uchoa said. "For us it is not about which city [it goes to] it is about how important it is to support strong projects in the country."

Written by Aaron Bauer

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