Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

My greetings to all the participants in this “FAZ – Innovatory Entrepreneurialism in the Portuguese Diaspora” Encounter, which I have joined this year once again, with the greatest of pleasures.

I thank you for your presence, coming from all around the World. I take this as a clear sign of the deep affection you have for Portugal. I am grateful to you all, particularly to those who crossed over other continents to join us here today.

Dr. Isabel Mota and Eng. Sérvulo Rodrigues, respectively on behalf of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and COTEC, are equally to be congratulated for the joint organization of the FAZ Prizes. This initiative’s prestige has grown from year to year, as shown by the increasing number and the diversity of the registrations and the geographic range of the participants’ provenance.

A special word of appreciation for the President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Dr. Artur Santos Silva, on how this Foundation has taken up the theme of relationship with the Diaspora. I equally congratulate Professor Joao Bento by the drive shown by COTEC with this initiative.

The Prize for Innovatory Entrepreneurialism, now in its seventh edition, and the Portuguese Origin Ideas competition have allowed our increasingly accurate knowledge of our Diaspora’s reality, in its different expressions and also, in its several generations, as shown by the ages of the participants, ranging from 20 to 83 years.

It’s setting up was a tribute to the enterprising spirit of the Portuguese, of all Portuguese, and in this spirit we want to especially distinguish, with the Innovatory Entrepreneurialism Prize, those that successfully developed their careers all over the world.

The initiative has conquered its own specific field and is nowadays a unique expression of the bonds the bring distances nearer and that are built out of the sharing of common affections and interests.

The group of Diaspora Portuguese which is with us here today, joined by all the others who, throughout the previous editions made their presence felt, clearly shows the extent and the enormous potential of a reality that, through this Prize, has become better known and given greater value.

The life histories that we came to know here today, due to their personal richness, to the personal confidence in each one’s capabilities, to the autonomy and the drive shown, are the evidence that the Portuguese, wherever they may be, are a people with an extraordinary capacity to excel itself.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Portugal is going through an historical period of great challenges. In the last few years the Portuguese, in their country, suffered difficulties that are also a course of learning, of becoming adapted to a reality with new demands.

Facing risks and uncertainty, we learnt an essential lesson: we have to be capable to overcome as best we can the barriers that limit us, to find original solutions, to exploit new resources.

The propensity to maintain the “status quo”, the systematic search for pretexts to avoid any change and the reserve with which new ideas are often placed, are, in themselves, the greatest risk we can run.

For this reason, the knowledge of your examples and the contribution of the Diaspora Portuguese assume an extremely relevant role as a mustering reference for all of us.

Throughout several visits I have carried out to Diaspora communities, I have been in close contact with the experience of being Portuguese in the wide World.

I have ascertained that, for the Portuguese who leave, departing Portugal does not signify relinquishing the Country’s way of life. On the contrary, the bonds are strengthened and the geographic distance brings about a new perspective, more objective, on the Country that we are and that we intend to be
Paradoxically, however, it actually seems that the human resources we develop are more valued externally than in Portugal.

We must thus learn with our Diaspora, and establish a new culture of merit and talent valuation. Each Portuguese has an enormous potential for undertaking. The materialization of this potential demands better confidence in our capabilities to overcome challenges and conquer difficulties.

As in the case of our fellow countrymen that succeed externally, our fate is in our own hands. If uncertainty and risk are inescapable features of the global world, opportunities exist everywhere. It is our duty to be able to take advantage of them.

Ladies and gentlemen,
The 21st century is, for many, an era of mobility. On a worldwide scale, two thirds of the countries are simultaneously ports of departure and points of arrival of a migrant population.

Migrations are visible examples of the interdependency of the global world. The flow of professionals is determined by causes that are over and above merely economic motivations, deriving also from factors such as professional fulfilment, career progress, recognition of merit and access to new cultural means.

The internationalization of scientific cooperation, the globalizing of companies’ production networks and the opening out of trade are powerful forces that stimulate, as never before, the mobility of professionals, especially those that are better qualified. The intensity of these phenomena will grow with the progressive opening of economies and with the deepening of economic integration.

Independently from the Country’s economic conditions, the Portuguese will continue to leave Portugal, sometimes due to necessity, other times due to a professional option and yet other times, due to the craving for adventure and discovery.

Many of those who leave nowadays belong to the best ever qualified Portuguese generation.

We must assume a serene and realistic vision of this new reality of the global world, refusing the idea that emigration necessarily represents an irreversible loss for the Country. We must, in effect, create conditions that are attractive to all, for those who wish to stay and for those that, being abroad, wish to return to live in Portugal.

I thus ask you to keep in contact with your Country. Encourage your offspring to learn Portuguese, a global language, the most frequently spoken language in the southern hemisphere. Visit Portugal with your families.

Show them our landscapes and our History. Introduce then to our authors, plastic artists and architects, all the cultural features that project Portugal’s name in the World. Show them the quality of our Universities. Be proud of our cultural bequests and of our historic heritage.

Ladies and gentlemen,
The World is well represented today in this hall. Thirty seven is the number of countries from the five continents, where our fellow countrymen that gave us the pleasure to answer the invitation sent them, live and work.

As I have already emphasized, there is a secret to the success of this initiative. The meeting of will-powers.
Since the beginning of my first mandate as President of the Republic, I took on the commitment to actively contribute towards the convergence between Portugal and the communities of Portuguese and Luso-descendants living abroad.

Portugal wishes to strengthen the network of the Portuguese who, throughout generations, dispersed over the four corners of the World. Your presence here and your interest in this initiative are the living proof that you continue linked by strong bonds of affection to the country where you were born or in which lie your roots.

Nowadays, the Innovatory Entrepreneurialism Prize is not just related to the economy; it is equally in respect of learning and research, of the associative spirit, and of the third sector, the creative industries. Interpreting these new values, emphasis is placed on the prizes awarded ex-aequo, this year, to Jorge da Costa and Ricardo Ribeiro.

I congratulate the Sumos Portugal Company, which comprised the winning team of the Prize for Portuguese Origin Ideas, as well as all the remaining finalists.

I consider this tribute to the enterprising and universalist spirit of the Portuguese, even if separated by differing circumstances and widely located geographical distances, as a motive of convergence, inspiration and belonging. I thus expect that it also serves the purpose, essential and nowadays unavoidable, of mustering all of us for Portugal’s development.

I very warmly thank you for your participation and your presence. I am certain that this is a sign of your drive and your confidence in Portugal’s future.

I wish you all the best of personal and professional success.

Thank you very much.