As you probably know, bronze, silver, and gold have been used as currency throughout most of human history, usually in the form of coins. What you might not know is that the amount of bronze, silver and gold in those coins was gradually reduced over time. Take the denarius, for example. The standard Roman silver […]

Buy less -> Save more Talk less -> Listen more Watch less TV -> Read more Frown less -> Smile more Sit less -> Exercise more Work less -> Play more Complain less -> Praise more Fight less -> Love more Ask less -> Donate more Worry less -> Breathe more

Recently I sold my car, and before deciding which one to get next I decided to rent one for a month. I went to a local branch of a Brazilian rent-a-car brand. The model and pricing were fine, so I said I wanted to go ahead and rent it. After agreeing to rent it and […]

Natural language processing has always fascinated me. It’s the field of computing and artificial intelligence concerned with making computers understand and speak the natural languages of humans, thus allowing people to interact with a computer as they would with another person, be it on a text or voice interface. One trend that is making good […]

Around six months ago I joined one of the leading associations for angel investors in Brazil, called Anjos do Brasil. Once a month there is a meeting with a keynote and four startups pitching to raise money. It has been a very interesting experience, because I am discovering the other side of the coin. Over […]

Fintech and mobile payments are segments that I find very interesting. That is why I decided to write an article summarizing the developments in the field. Before getting started, notice that we could split mobile payments into three sub-segments: 1. P2P payments (i.e., money transfer using a mobile phone, app or SMS) 2. Remote payments […]

It looks like 2015 is on to a good start. Only a couple of months after winning a car at Ford’s hackathon I decided to participate in another programming competition, and I ended up winning it as well. Organized by MasterCard, the Masters Of Code event tours around the world, and participants need to develop […]

First things first: if you are not getting rejected on a regular basis, you are probably not pushing yourself enough and not leaving your comfort zone; two things that are essential to achieving your goals, both in your personal and professional life. If you work inside a large company, for instance, you should be getting […]

Early in 2015 Ford held a hackathon at the Campus Party event in São Paulo, Brazil. It was the first hackathon sponsored by a car manufacturer in South America ever, and it generated a lot of buzz with the local media, because the prize for the winner was a brand new car. I always had […]

I was in line at a coffee shop today when I noticed a sign with the following invitation: “Pay It Forward Coffee: Buy it now and we’ll give it to the next customer ordering a coffee.” I am not drinking a lot of coffee these days (as I talked about in this post) but the […]