Rousseff says Brazil-US relations moved to next level

As the final part of her visit to the United States, President Dilma Rousseff toured NASA's Research Center in California on Wednesday (July 1st), where she was introduced to the Advanced Supercomputing Division, located 64 km away from San Francisco.

At NASA, the president had meetings with aerospace industry business executives, including top leaders at Boeing, EMBRAER, and Honeywell. Speaking to reporters, she said her trip to the US had been very productive and that the Brazil-US relations have achieved “a level of broader future and present horizons”.

Earlier, Rousseff met with the president of the University of California, Janet Napolitano, and the chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, Nicholas Dirks. The president also met with the Chief Executive Officer of SRI International research institute, Bill Jeffrey. She toured the Google, Inc. headquarters on a self-driving car operated by a smart steering system that enables it to ride without a driver.

After the ride, the president said she was struck by the technology. “It's amazing! You feel as though there really was a driver following all signs, the vehicle in front, bicycles, pedestrians... It really impressed me. It's something to be shown around, as a sign that the world is changing in this area. And it also means safer, more efficient public transport,” she said.

At Stanford University, Rousseff had lunch with former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, alongside scholars and business leaders including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and LinkedIn's Michael Callaghan.

The United States is the main destination country for Brazilian students in the federal government's Science Without Borders program, which provides scholarships for study at universities abroad. Brazil wants to encourage student and researcher exchange between the two countries and expand the number of Brazilian students in such areas as engineering, algorithms, and biotechnology.

Translated by Mayra Borges