Tech & Innovation Blog

Porto Alegre: Home to ADP Brazil Labs 

Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, is home to one of ADP’s Technology and Innovation labs in the South of Brazil. The city has an estimated population of 1,492,530 (about the population of West Virginia in the U.S.). Known for offering tourism and leisure time, Porto Alegre features several urban parks with green areas that attract those looking to enjoy nature and history. 

In 2022, Porto Alegre celebrated its 250th birthday with enthusiasm and vitality. The city is constantly developing and becoming a hub for generating new technology-based businesses and attracting and retaining talent. Join our community to follow our events and what we are developing at the Labs.  

May 2022 – South Summit Brazil  

The first South Summit Brazil took place in Porto Alegre as the world continued to recover from the global pandemic. The global entrepreneurship and innovation event started in Spain ten years ago and is now an international conference. 

The public and private sectors, academics, and other institutions collaborated to make it happen, all contributing to positioning Porto Alegre as a global innovation player. The numbers were awe-inspiring, with 20,000+ visitors representing more than 50 countries, 500 presenters, and 1,000 submissions to the startup competition.  

We look forward to South Summit Brazil 2023, where top speakers worldwide share their expertise and leaders look for business opportunities. The summit will take place from March 29 to 31 next year. Learn more about the event here.    

Introducing Instituto Caldeira 

Instituto Caldeira, also known as the “Boiler Institute,” is a non-profit organization for creativity and communication. The hub provides an opportunity for people to network together to improve the new economy and innovative ecosystem of Porto Alegre and the state of Rio Grande do Sul.  

It was founded by forty-two major companies in 2017 that refurbished the old industrial complex for innovation activities and the new economy. The complex still houses the boilers imported from Europe back when prominent businessman AJ Renner started it over 100 years ago!  

With only a little over a year of operation, it has already hosted an impressive number of activities. The Boiler comprises more than 22K sqm of space, 42 corporate founders, 330 affiliated companies, 700 startups in the ecosystem, and 15 national and international associated hubs. 

ADP Brazil Labs Offsite

In early June, Julio Hartmann, VP of ADP Brazil Labs, and his Senior Leadership Team (SLT) team met for a strategy meeting at Instituto Caldeira. It was an excellent opportunity for the team to get together in person after two years of working remotely. Everyone was impressed with Instituto Caldeira’s structure and the initiatives, looking forward to expanding collaboration in the future. 

Julio began the leadership offsite by discussing the content from the Global Product & Technology (GP&T) Leadership Summit. Julio proposed a transformational strategy for the Labs to connect better and leverage the external ecosystem. The plan included presentations from some development leaders about their groups, from Workforce Now (WFN), DataCloud, NextGen (core platforms and Centers of Excellence), and myCareerConnect, to ADP Ventures. There were also presentations about cross-organizational areas and initiatives, such as Product, UX, Agility, Innovation, and the Machine Learning CoE. 

Thinking Forward  

Data Science Guild

The Data Scientists from the Brazil Labs worked together in the Data Science Guild, an internal group created in 2018. They meet biweekly to discuss recent papers on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). The meeting helped them share knowledge and work together more effectively, including Data Analysts and Data Engineers from various ADP product teams like Roll, DataCloud, myCareerConnect, WFN, and Marketplace. 

Innovation Time

Innovation time was a moment for the leaders to think about how the companies stay relevant in the future, reinforcing the innovative culture throughout the labs. The leaders plan to accelerate new opportunities from various sources, including employee ideas, discoveries from client needs, and technological advances.  

UX at Brazil Labs

The leaders from ADP Brazil Labs met with the User Experience (UX) team to understand the balance between UX and other areas, including the development concept guided by Triads that gave our digital product development a more organized structure.  

The team talked about how the area has been growing quickly in recent years and an overview of team size and the project distribution. The leaders and the team ensured the UX team had the resources for product decision-making.  

It was exciting to see the Brazil team’s participation grow within our global UX equation. We grew approximately 150% in the number of projects we participated with even more planned for the future. For example, we launched a local talent strategy and workstreams initiative, aligning with the GPT talent vision and Objectives and key results (OKRs). The positive result has led us to work hard on structuring and supporting our strategies.  

Learn more about working at Brazil Labs and visit Who We Hire. 

Porto Alegre, Instituto Caldeira, Data Science, South Summit, South Summit Porto Alegre