There’s no other way. Artificial intelligence isn’t just the buzzword of the moment, it’s a tech revolution of distinguished impact, comparable to the telegraph, the internet, and the smartphone. Okay, but without a doubt, AI is also the buzzword of the momentーand one that was repeated many times during the 2024 edition of TDC Summit Sao Paulo. 

The traditional event, which takes place yearly across the main tech hubs in Brazil since 2008, was heavily focused on the discussions around generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), its technicalities, ethics and applications on the day to day of the tech community.

Nubank, besides hosting an exhibition booth, sponsored the Community Loungeーa space of discussions about the bridges that connect AI to subjects such as Cloud and DevOps, safety and privacy, quality assurance and testing, data handling and, most importantly, challenges faced by the tech community.

Let’s emphasize the “most importantly” part, because Nubank’s participation in the event was, really, all about community. 

Are you interested in finding out more about the event, Nubank’s participation and its contributions to the technology community? Keep reading this blog post!

Made by the community, for the community

The main hall of the Rebouças Convention Center, located between the Jardins and Pinheiros districts in the heart of the city of São Paulo, was filled with exhibition booths from market-leading tech companies.

Alongside Nubank, there were innovative solutions for all tastes: from Software-as-a-Service companies to tailor-made software houses; from cloud solutions to big data solutions; and, above all, the vanguard of artificial intelligence not only in Brazil, but in the world.

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AI in the hall, AI on the panels

In addition to the sales pitches and networking between participants in the hall, artificial intelligence was also the main subject of the panels and lectures that took place in the event’s four presentation spaces. There were also lab sessions in which speakers and visitors could get their hands dirty training models and practicing prompt engineering.

To be truly revolutionary, an innovation needs to raise discussions on a wide variety of fronts, connecting itself with other areas, particularities and worldviews.

If there was any doubt about the disruptive nature of generative AI and LLMs, the TDC Summit put an end to it. The discussions covered an incredible range of subjects: business, strategy, data, ethics, feedback, accessibility, machine learning, app development, health and much more. And all closely connected to artificial intelligence.

And what about the community?

Although they’re important, spaces for discussing technological evolution are empty if the impact of this on the tech community isn’t also raised as a subject. 

It was with this mindset that Nubank organized the panel discussion “Challenges of the tech communities“, with the participation of Arthur Fücher, Developer Advocate at Nubank and agitator of the Brazilian Clojure community, Monica Craveiro de Menezes, Back-End Developer and volunteer in the NodeBR community, and Vivian Mayumi Yamassaki, Data Science Specialist and Co-Founder of the Women in Artificial Intelligence (MIA) community, with the mediation of Dan Vitoriano, founder of LGBTech Conf Brasil and Devs 40+.

The panel’s starting point revolved around the challenges communities face when trying to engage their participants and get them active. The general impression is that before the pandemic, it was easier to get sponsorships and venues for community events.

As an exception to the rule, Vivian cited the partnership with Nubank for MIA’s 2023 meetup, which opened the doors to its main auditorium. However, as it has become more difficult to bring the community together in person, the speakers mentioned encouraging the production of content among the base, whether for newsletters, blogs or livestreams, as a strategy to engage community members.

It was unanimous: for all three speakers, it’s crucial that people in the community share knowledge, whether they are more experienced or not. Monica even spoke of the importance of motivating people who have never given a lecture, for example, to lose the fear that prevents them from doing so. With the support of the community, of course, either by providing pre-talk mentoring or by offering help with the content, the presentation deck or the script.

The panel came to the conclusion that this movement, based on the exchange of knowledge, is strongest in the tech world. They also talked about the importance of communities in networking and professional development and the role of communities in promoting gender, racial, sexual and geographical diversity.

Dan Vitoriano, the panel’s mediator, reinforced the importance of plurality in his closing remarks: “We need to give everyone a chance, because not everyone started from the same place”.

Nubank and communities

As well as practicing positive coexistence and partnership with various communities, as in the case of the Women in Artificial Intelligence group mentioned above, Nubank also has its own initiatives when it comes to fostering communities.

Nubank’s Arthur Fücher even spoke about some of them during the panel. The first, and one of the most relevant, is the relationship between Nubank and the Clojure programming language. This language has been used by Nu since its first microservices were coded, back in 2013. 

And since 2020, when Cognitec, the company that created Clojure, joined Nubank, the world’s largest neobank has become one of the biggest funders, promoters and supporters of the language.

In addition, Nubank organizes regular Data Science & Machine Learning meetups, where it brings together company professionals and external experts to exchange knowledge. And, of course, it also runs this blog you’re reading now: Building Nubank, where you’ll find articles written by our employees and our editorial team. 

The topics range from the day-to-day lives of Nubankers, information about our careers, technical texts and much more. All with a taste of the backstage for those who want to stay on top of what happens at Nubank when no one is looking.

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