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Entrepreneurship is a term that has always appeared associated with the promotion of socio-economic rise of individuals. It has been frequently mentioned on the social intervention agendas, especially in vocational training proposals and policies of local social development.

But what is entrepreneurship?

Historically, the term was used to identify the individual who starts an organization. But little by little, the entrepreneur started to be recognized as not only the one who innovates, and in 1985, the "intra-entrepreneur" term was introduced, referring to enterprising people within an organization.

One of the greatest scholars on this subject, Robert Hirsch, determined that entrepreneurship is the process of creating something different and with value by devoting time and effort, assuming the corresponding financial, psychological, and social risks, but getting personal and economic rewards from it.

Many people believe that Entrepreneurship is a key promoter of economic and social development of a country. The role of the entrepreneur is to identify opportunities, grab them, and get the resources to turn them into profitable business.

How to become an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneurship is not a personality trait. For an individual to be able to identify opportunities and resources, connect ...

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All kinds of serious problems are evident in irregular settlements, among them, the lack of infrastructure, poor environmental conditions in most dwellings, the lack of qualified public spaces, and lack of equipment and services.

We know that the solution of these problems depends on the implementation of infrastructure, but also on new conditions for the population citizenship, by guarantying quality projects for both housing and for public spaces that provide some features of the formal city in the informal city.

Working in Paraisópolis, there we realized certain values that ought to be incorporated to the formal city discourse too.

These are the values that I called the Seven Lessons Learned from Paraisópolis, in the absence of a better name.

There is a city that is built from its geography, its topography, and its hydrography, in contrast to the history of Sao Paulo, where this fact was systematically ignored, and we are still paying the consequences of a proud and irresponsible deployment.

1. We can have a compact city with higher densities than the densest city of Europe, as opposed to the sprawling city of neighborhoods and individual house condominiums that fill the landscape on

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For a city as high on modern architecture as São Paulo, its newly found generosity of spirit towards its contrasting favela-studded landscape is a precious thing. The administration seems to be more accepting of the city’s diverse urban texture than ever before. It is now loosening policies to allow existing favelas to upgrade themselves and become well-integrated parts of the city.

São Paulo has experimented with years of diverse approaches to ‘tackle’ these neighbourhoods. These have included encouraging migrants to go ‘back home’ or relocating them in social housing projects. Today, of its officially estimated three million favela residents, the administration focuses on relocating only those who live in high risk zones. Local actors continue building and improving their houses, while the prefecture retrofits water systems and other civic infrastructure.

Such a shift may be strategic, shrewd or contingent on electoral cycles. However, in a world with little patience for alternative forms of urban settlement – where everyone is in a hurry to redevelop according to the global standards of the day - such a reprieve is itself revolutionary. Especially when it is combined with the strengthening of local governance and emergent economic practices such as local currencies. ...

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