I really do believe that mayors have the political position to really change people's lives.

I strongly believe being mayor is the public post in which you have the greatest opportunity to change peoples' lives for the better. People live in cities, not states or nations. As a mayor, you are connected directly to citizens.

Civil movements and riots are as old as human civilization. Long before Twitter was created, mobilization of the discontented was mouth-to-mouth, or even by 'smoke signals' to gather the uprising against established political power.

Political movements and mega sporting events have always gone hand in hand. In 1980, there were Cold War boycotts in Moscow and again in 1984 during Los Angeles Games.

In Rio, 1.4 million of the 6.3 million people live in favelas, or slums. They are all over the city, but favelas are not always a problem - sometimes they can be a solution, if you have the right public policies.

Globalization has produced a new of level of interdependence among us. The economy and multinational supply chains do not abide by political boundaries. A computer ordered in Brazil is designed in California and assembled in several other countries. Economic integration was the first strong evidence of a new era.