Marcus Fontoura gave a master class to Foundation students and presented current demands of the job market

Last Tuesday (16), StoneCo.'s Technology Director, Marcus Fontoura, gave a master class on Engineering Principles at the School of Applied Mathematics at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV EMAp), in Rio de Janeiro. Around 90 students from the institution were present at the FGV Cultural Center to follow the activity.

Maria Izabel Camacho, Fábio Kapitanovas, Carolina Costa, Marcus Fontoura and César Camacho after master class at FGV

The theme was handpicked by Fontoura, as it relates Engineering and Technology from a modern vision that brings together academia and the professional market. The students interacted a lot with the speaker, who already has experience in other leading companies in the segment, such as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and IBM.

Two themes were protagonists of the master class and gave rise to debate later: Large-Scale Complex Systems and Engineering Principles and Culture. Fontoura was impressed to see the auditorium filled with students eager for information on the area and future market projections.

“I was very honored and happy to be invited by the School, as I consider the partnership between industry and universities to be fundamental, as well as direct contact with students. I really liked the questions. The students were very interested and had very relevant questions. This is in line with impact actions that we have promoted with StoneCo.”, assesses the computer scientist, who completed his Post-Doctorate at Princeton, in the United States.

Marcus Fontoura is Technology Director at StoneCo. and presented a master class last Tuesday at FGV

The interest of FGV EMAp students resulted in interesting questions that led to an extensive and rich debate about the perspectives of the area. And Fontoura was careful to prioritize topics that went beyond the conventional schedule of Technology courses.

“I chose a topic that was relevant to students in order to enter the job market. I wanted to bring something that is not usually covered in undergraduate Technology courses and that could bring another perspective to the participants”, he adds.

César Camacho, Director of FGV EMAp, approved the master class experience with Fontoura and believes that the chosen theme is in line with what makes companies successful in the business sector.

“Marcus has a strong CV from a scientific point of view, with research works published in excellent journals, but also a unique professional trajectory in large companies such as Google and Microsoft. His talk shows the importance of Data Science in the routine of an innovative company. It reinforced the idea that solid theoretical knowledge in Computing and Applied Mathematics are necessary to solve the problems that arise in the complex network of a sophisticated business”, he assesses.

Around 90 students attended the FGV Cultural Center for the StoneCo Technology Director class

It is worth mentioning that FGV EMAp was a pioneering institution in Brazil to offer a degree program in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. In 2023, for example, the institution graduated its 1st class of the course.

Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

The data scientist is the professional responsible for highlighting the knowledge hidden in large volumes of data. In the midst of this process comes Artificial Intelligence, which is the set of computational, mathematical and engineering techniques that aim to train computers in order to simulate human activities.

The School offers techniques that enable computers to improve their algorithms, first testing them with established data, and with each iteration produced, getting closer to a solution to the proposed problem.

This is an extremely new area full of challenges that is not yet offered as widely in Brazil. And FGV EMAp is still one of the few institutions that offers the opportunity to acquire professional training of international quality in this sector.