Rodrigo Baggio's White Paper

All the 2006 Principal Voices are submitting a White Paper to the Web site, explaining their views at length.

Rodrigo Baggio, founder of the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology, discusses the way his network of computer schools has helped many thousands of disadvantaged young Brazilians gain skills and jobs -- as well as self-respect.


Some time around the turn of the millennium, Marcos Antonio Nascimento da Silva's life took a bad turn. Out of work and out of luck, he drifted into the world of petty crime on the streets of Sao Paulo.
He was just 17 years old when he was locked away in a home for juvenile offenders. Several hundred kilometers away, in Rio de Janeiro, Altamiro Serra and Ronaldo Monteiro - both in their late 20s and going nowhere fast - also ended up behind bars. The tales of these three men are sad but only too familiar.
And it's not just Brazil. By reinventing modernity, globalization undeniably left a trail of contradictions.
No one doubts that we have been blessed with fabulous new technologies, but often these innovations come tainted by frustrations and dreams gone sour. On the one hand, we have seen soaring productivity, breathtaking instantaneousness, and the advantages of living in a world without borders.
On the other hand there is ruthless competition, frantic consumerism, greater waste and a predatory scramble for resources. Worse, social inequality has grown, and so has crime.
The Committee for Democracy of Information Technology (CDI), a Brazilian NGO dedicated to those with low incomes or special needs, was born at this exact moment. This was in the mid 90s, the beginnings of the "knowledge society," when specialized skills were the order of the day.
Technology and communications - globalization's key tools - became the guide and measure of virtually all sectors of the economy and human activity. It was also the beginning of a brand new kind of exclusion: digital exclusion. It's not hard to guess on which side of the digital divide the Marcoses, the Altamiros, and the Ronaldos of the world fell.
CDI decided to turn the tables by pioneering a new educational model anchored in the notion that computer technology skills are essential to creating fully enfranchised citizens.
Digital inclusion means much more than access to computers and the Internet. In 965 CDI schools operating in 19 Brazilian states and eight other countries, students are taught how to use information technology to enhance their abilities to think critically and creatively, to analyze political and social reality, and to generate jobs and business opportunities.
Above all, CDI offers students and teachers alike the opportunity to work together to become protagonists in the collective effort of building a more just and egalitarian society.
Recent studies show how difficult digital inclusion will be. In Brazil alone, fewer than 16% of households own computers and a mere 12.2% of them have access to the Internet. The vast majority of computer technology is concentrated in just three regions (the federal capital, the south, and southeast) according to a 2004 study of 183 nations by the International Telecommunications Union.
Brazil placed a lowly 65th in Internet connectivity, trailing Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico. The high cost of personal computers, poor computer training in the classroom and inconsistent public policies are the main reasons why middle and lower income Brazilians are still outsiders in the modern information society.
Since being formed, CDI has honed its commitment to helping the least favored. And this is where the story of Marcos, Altamiro and Ronaldo picks up again.
While still serving time, all three of them signed up for classes at CDI's schools behind bars and never looked back. When they were finally released they had mastered much more than the secrets of computers:they had come to appreciate the meaning of self esteem and self determination.
Today, Marcos works for a major company in Brazil. Altamiro coordinates a CDI school, while Ronaldo runs social projects aimed at turning underprivileged residents of the neglected outskirts of Rio into full-fledged democratic citizens.
CDI has trained more than half a million people in everything from community education to protecting the environment to organizing cooperatives. Each one of these small gestures is rooted in something much larger: the realization that technology can be harnessed as a powerful tool for social change and serve as a bridge between the real and virtual worlds. These worlds may not be so distant after all.

Fonte: http://www.principalvoices.com/2006/economy/rodrigo.baggio.white.paper.html