Paraty Quantum Information: How a Conference Helped Foster a Research Field in Brazil

There are many scientific conferences around the world, but some of them play special roles. Paraty Quantum Information is one of these. In this article we present the story of how it was dreamt up and how it became a reality. We emphasize the conference's key role in fostering a community in this field, by creating and reinforcing bouds between different research groups inside Brazil, within South America and around the globe. A high-quality and low-stress international school, at an attractive place, with the costs of a national event proved to be a very efficient mechanism for this.