Celebrating two years of partnership between Banco BRB and Plug and Play Tech Center

In 2022, Banco BRB and Plug and Play Tech Center celebrate two years of partnership. During this period, Banco BRB launched its innovation lab, BRBLAB, and its first open innovation bidding, as well as its intrapreneurship program in Silicon Valley.

The partnership between the companies not only boosted BRB's digital transformation, but also helped the innovation culture inside and outside the bank mature.

"The partnership with Plug and Play was an important step for BRB. This is a project with the potential to boost the development of the Brazilian Federal District, by fostering the local technology and innovation industry. Through the partnership we evolved a lot and we've reached Silicon Valley. The main goal is to improve the quality of our products and services, in addition to offering the best solutions for our customers and the entire population of the Federal District," states Paulo Henrique Costa, president of BRB.

The creation and inauguration of the BRBLAB, in 2021 was the first stage of the Bank's innovation process, which stimulated an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and local innovation that looks for new technologies and solutions aimed at the financial system, government and citizens. The lab has 10 meeting rooms and capacity for up to 76 entrepreneurs. The first Open Innovation Program with the goal of accelerating the digital transformation at the bank was born in this space.

The partnership enabled the 1st Open Innovation Bidding focused on: security, payment methods, government solutions, customer experience and operational efficiency, with the purpose of accelerating the bank's strategy through innovative products and services developed by startups. As a result of the program, ten startups were chosen to be part of the BRB innovation ecosystem and three of them partnered with the bank on the following topics: customer experience, payment methods and operational efficiency.

Recently, in June 2022, the partnership between BRB and Plug and Play took place in Silicon Valley, California (USA). The purpose of this experience was to enable the development of a virtual assistant project, named BaRBara, during three months. This project is part of the intrapreneurship program, it will use artificial intelligence to gain scalability, speed, efficiency and to reinforce the bank's digital culture, and its mission is to serve the customers and social programs.

In addition to the major changes already underway, BRB and Plug and Play constantly work together focused on fostering an innovative entrepreneurial culture, inside and outside the bank, promoting workshops and webinars. Two such events have already been held, and two more are planned to take place by the end of the year. The subjects chosen are connected to trends and topics of interest to BRB, such as Corporate Venture Capital, Innovative Project Management, Open Innovation and Risk Management.