CDI initially created as a network of more than 200 self-managed computer schools in the urban slums of 17 Brazilian states, helping students who might otherwise have turned to drug trafficking or violence. CDI is an example of bridging the digital divide while providing important job opportunities to young Brazilians. Over 500,000 students have attended over 800 ICT schools since the project began, laying the foundation for professional skills.

In December 2003 Rodrigo Baggio, founder and Executive Director of CDI, was reading a book about the history of Vila Isabel, a district in Rio de Janeiro. For Baggio this book had a special significance because it was written by students in a school that had been founded by CDI in Morro dos Macacos, a favela located in Vila Isabel. Rodrigo was very proud to see this. His dream –to create schools to teach computer skills to low-income communities– was now a reality. In fact, Rodrigo’s idea had been so successful that he and his team were wondering how CDI could grow and broaden its scope without sacrificing quality or losing sight of its original objective. (www.cdi.org.br)

CDI
The Comitê para Democratização da Informática (CDI), is a non-political, non-profit, and non-governmental organisation founded in Brazil in 1995. CDI aims to promote the social inclusion of less-privileged populations, using Information and Communication Technologies as a means to help them become aware of their rights as citizens to participate fully in society. CDI operates in low-income communities and in partnership with institutions that serve specific target groups, such as individuals with special needs, psychiatric patients, street children, prisoners and indigenous populations. By December 2003, eight years after the opening of the first school in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, CDI had 833 schools in 11 countries. More than 501,000 people had received training in these schools.

Rodrigo Baggio’s dream
Rodrigo Baggio founded the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (CDI) as a social movement, with the aim of opening more such schools, known as Information Technology Citizenship Rights Schools (ITCRS). But things happened more quickly than he could ever have imagined. The recently created CDI soon received requests from communities to create schools in other favelas. In only ten months there were ITCRS in ten favelas in Rio de Janeiro.

The social franchise model
To reduce the digital divide between rich and poor in Brazil, action had to be taken:

• An infrastructure was needed in low-income communities, especially with respect to telephone connections.
• Internet access stations were needed that were free or available at very low cost.
• Training was needed for people to be able to make full use of Internet technology. This was where the ITCRS could do more work.

In response to the great demand for new schools in other Brazilian states and beyond, CDI designed a “social franchise” model. The idea was to set up Regional CDI offices to work locally to create new schools. Each new CDI had to be founded by local organisations. CDI headquarters in Rio de Janeiro received applications for partnership from other NGOs, foundations, individuals, or organisations interested in implementing the CDI model in their region. Every new office had to have a group of volunteers capable of managing campaigns to collect computers and funds, and of contacting companies and other institutions, including local media. They also needed to have people capable of giving technical support to the schools, and in particular people capable of training the new teachers. If a proposal was viable, the establishment of a new CDI was approved and the local partner signed a “Protocol of Intentions” undertaking to respect CDI rules.

Each newly created CDI was called a Regional CDI, and was responsible for establishing ITCRS within its region. Each Regional CDI was independently run, self-managed and self-sustained. Together, all the CDIs made up what was known as the CDI network.

New CDIs were advised to operate as social movements for 6 months to one year. During that time they would have to build local partnerships, raise funds and solicit donations of equipment to ensure they were financially self-sustainable, while the new internal structure matured. When this period was over, the new CDI was legally entitled to become a non-governmental organisation, which made it exempt from taxes and offered tax benefits for donors.


Information Technology and Citizens Rights Schools (ITCRS)
One of the first challenges for a new regional CDI was to find local partners and set up its first ITCRS. As the project grew and gained local credibility, the process would change, as the initiative for creating new schools would start to come from community-based associations, which would approach the regional CDI with a view to forming a partnership.

Any local organisation interested in setting up a school in partnership with the regional CDI had to present a project detailing the characteristics of the beneficiary community, the activities to be carried out, the team1 , etc. Communities themselves had to organise and plan the means to guarantee the self-sustainability and self-management of the ITCRS. The regional CDI would study the viability of the project and visit the future ITRCS to verify that it complied with the requirements for new schools (space, furniture, electricity, ventilation, safety, etc.). If the project was approved, CDI would help to set up the school.

Schools were installed in rooms made available free of charge by community organisations. CDI provided free computer equipment (donated by companies and individuals) and software, continuous training of educators and coordinators, pedagogical guidance, supervision and help in conducting fundraising campaigns and training personnel to be responsible for the maintenance of the schools. A school’s success would depend on the commitment of the local partner that assumed ownership of the project.

To achieve financial self-sufficiency, some schools might be sponsored by a partner through donations; others charged a nominal tuition fee, which was determined by each ITCRS but could not be more than R$15.00 per month (approximately 5 US$). The fees helped to pay maintenance costs and instructors; they also had a pedagogical function in heightening students’ awareness of the value of what they were doing.

A typical school might have 5 computers and a printer. Each class offered 10 places (two students per computer). The schools usually operated 6 hours a day, 5 days a week2 . Each group had 3 hours of classes per week, so each ITCRS could enroll 10 groups, which meant there could be up to 100 students enrolled on the courses. There were courses at different levels, depending on the students’ knowledge, ranging from an introduction to computers to instruction in the use of specific programs – word processors, spreadsheets, databases, Internet, software development, digital audio/video production and network planning and implementation. A course could last from one to three months.

After a school had been established, the regional CDI would visit it at regular intervals to supervise the way it was run and the way the CDI formula was applied, and to offer guidance. Regular meetings with school coordinators were held to discuss any problems that might have arisen (management, fundraising, etc). These meetings and visits were an important opportunity for exchange of ideas and suggestions. New practices and ideas that had been adopted successfully in one school could then be evaluated and used throughout the rest of the CDI network.

Educators and Students
Partner organisations were responsible for selecting suitable educators for their schools. Ideally, a candidate for the post of educator would have a background in information technology and would have finished, or would be about to finish, High School.

Educators received training in the regional CDI. During training, educators came into contact with CDI work, were exposed to the philosophy behind it and became acquainted with the teaching methodology. Continuous training of teachers was very important. CDI organised monthly meetings of teachers to compare experiences and resolve problems.

Many educators worked as volunteers. Others worked full-time and received a reasonable salary, depending on the number of classes they taught and the fees the school charged its students.

Motivation of employees and volunteers was another important consideration. There were online chats, discussion groups and a digital newspaper. The constant interchange of ideas made members feel part of the CDI family.


The type of students depended on the school. Some schools had a clearly defined target group, such as young people, people In his words|Rodrigo Baggio Rodrigo Baggio, the founder of CDI has won many accolades and worldwide recognition for his work that uses the potential of ICT for upliftment of poor community in Brazil. To mention a few, he has been a fellow member of the Ashoka Social Entrepreneurs in 1997; was appointed one of the 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland in 2001; winner of the Tech Museum award 2004 in the Equity category, which is the largest in Silicon Valley and acknowledges the best technology projects for the benefit of humanity. He speaks about the CDI initiative. Excerpts:

On the origin of CDI
Actually when I was twelve years, I found my two big passions in life. All during my adolescence, I continued to work as a volunteer with social movements and also continued to work with technology. But also, in college I made a decision to make a link between technology and my social sides. After college I began to work in international companies like Accenture and IBM. And after IBM, I started my own company and I began to focus 100%, 200% in my company and I didn’t have time to work as a volunteer. And I was not happy with this situation. 1993 was a very important year in my life because in this year, I asked myself about my future, about what I would like to be in 10 years. But I didn’t know how or in what kind of social work I would like to start. In 1993 during a night, I had a dream and in my dream I saw poor young people using computers and having discusssions about their reality and about solutions to their problems through computers. And the next day when I woke up, I was so excited about this dream that I decided to change this dream into reality. I know I’m not Martin Luther King, but I had my own dream and I believed in this dream. My first step was that I created a computer donation campaign in Latin America and through this campaign I realised that poor young people love the idea of using a computer, but they don’t know how to use one.

When I started this computer donation campaign, I began to donate computers to low-income communities. After 6 months of doing this campaign, I realised that if we teach about technology, they leverage the use of technology better. So in July of 1994 I had the idea to start a school for information technology and citizens’ rights inside a community in Rio de Janeiro. So when I had this idea, I began to talk with many people about this idea. And 99% precent of these people (my friends, my family, businessmen) said, ‘Rodrigo, you are crazy because poor people have the minds of poor people and they will never understand how to use technology.’ And they also said that poor people need food, not technology.

On CDI’s bridging the digital divide
In Brazil, we have about 14% of the population using computers and about 10-11% of the population connecting to the Internet. So, we have in Brazil a real “digital apartheid”. So many people are excluded from the technology. And the CDI’s way to combat this reality is that we create digital schools in partnership with community-base organisations. For us it is important not only to teach technology but to use technology to change the reality of these low income communities. Our pedagogical proposal is very important to us. It is based on awareness learning, having in mind social transformation. Our students will talk about the reality of their communities while learning about technology. That means technology for us is a tool; it’s not the end. And they build a social project and this project will have an impact in their communities and by doing this project, they will learn about technology. So, through these citizens and information technology schools, we are including these poor young people in the new society.

On the future of CDI
We have built our management informational systems, database, and Internet. And now we have information for all of our schools in all of our states and countries. And we apply many processes to guarantee quality in our network. So, continuous work with quality is very important to us. Today we have 946 information technology and citizen rights schools working in 20 Brazilian states and in 10 countries. And our focus is more with low-income communities, but we have many special projects in special schools for indigenous people, for blind and poor, mentally disabled, physically disabled, and street kids, senior citizens. So we work with many different groups, but our focus is still young, poor people in low-income communities. Nearly 700,000 people have taken part in the training programs.

To start new partnerships and work with new companies is very strategic for us. We believe a lot in partnership. So, to work with more companies gives the possibility to learn more with these companies and aggregate value in our work. with disabilities, prisoners, etc. Others worked for the community at large.


An evaluation of the social impact, carried out by a external organisation, revealed that 87% of the students considered that the ITCRS had had a positive impact on their lives, in terms of motivating them to go back to school to continue their formal education, making new friends, or staying away from drugs. Ninety percent said that the courses had lived up to their expectations, 90% intended to do further courses, and 79% expected to find a job after completing the courses. There was evidence, too, that students’ school grades improved after attending ITCRS courses.

The schools’ main objective was to give students a solid foundation for their future. The education they provided was not focused exclusively on acquiring computer skills; students were also trained to become entrepreneurs and become capable of thinking, discussing and taking action in their own social context. Technology was a tool for creating community awareness. “The computer is more than a machine, it’s a tool that can turn poor and underprivileged people into true citizens”.

Teaching methodology
CDI had developed a methodology for teaching information technology. They taught in a creative manner, so as to foster the students’ development as individuals as well as the development of their community. Students learned how to use computers and software while discussing issues of particular interest to their community, such as human rights, the environment, sexual education, health and non-violence.

This methodology was applied in accordance with the ideas of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. The students learned their rights as members of society, and this could pave the way out of their social exclusion.

In December 2003 CDI had regional offices in 37 cities in 19 Brazilian states, and 11 CDI committees in ten countries. In total, 833 schools had been created.

Challenges for the future
After years of intense expansion, CDI headquarters was wondering how to maintain the quality of the CDI model. Rapid expansion had created a large number of offices, but the CDI structure was not developed enough to manage this growth. CDI headquarters did not have the monitoring tools to control the whole network, and it was difficult to evaluate the activities of some offices. For that reason, since 2001 tougher conditions had been introduced for the creation of new centres. The priority was to improve the quality of existing CDIs and concentrate on growing in Brazil. CDI focused on specific issues, such as appointing more teaching coordinators at each regional CDI; increasing the amount of training and the number of inspection visits to regional CDIs and ITCRS; correctly implementing the teaching methodology; and improving management information.

As regards the students, CDI was looking to provide a future for them after their schooling by seeking partnerships with companies to fund their continuing education; and, faced with the lack of employment opportunities in Brazilian society, by creating the Silicon Hill project. Silicon Hill was a successful pilot project that was tested in Rio de Janeiro, as an upgrade of CDI’s social franchise model. The main objective of the project was to give disadvantaged youth the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial skills. The students were motivated to develop projects that had the potential to generate income and that would give them better employment prospects. Business management training was included in the program to support income-generating projects such as micro-enterprises.

In December 2003 Rodrigo Baggio and his team had new ideas and plans for the future: to connect as many ITCRS as possible to the Internet to create a worldwide network – a digital community that would act as a bridge between different social classes and different countries.

New ways of generating income were being studied; some of the ideas were proposed and successfully applied by students. For example in the ITCRS of Morro dos Macacos the students created a cyber-café to provide Internet access at low cost for the community. They also set up a co-operative with a focus on Information Technology and with the objective of encouraging income generation and offering work opportunities to members of the community. This co-operative was soon proving its worth, securing a contract with a government agency, and some of the members became employees for large companies in the Technology Market.

CDI faces new challenges in its expansion for future. How would Rodrigo and his team be able to manage growth without losing the original vision of CDI?

The beneficiaries Altamiro: An ex-inmate of the Lemos Brito Penitentiary in Rio, Altamiro had learned about information technology and computer maintenance at the ITCRS in the prison. He had been granted probation by the state and now worked as an educator for another ITCRS in the Maracanã football stadium. Ednilson Beserra: Ednilson was trained by CDI as an IT instructor at the ITCRS in Morro de São Carlos, in Estácio, a neighbourhood of Rio. He then set up his own micro-business which offered various IT services, and worked as an educator for CDI RJ. Marcos Mendes: A young social entrepreneur of rare intelligence, Marcos became an ITCRS co-ordinator at DefNet – Centre for Information Technology and Information on Cerebral Paralysis. Marcos was handicapped and had fought for the rights of the handicapped for many years, his main concern being the issue of political policy concerning their social inclusion. As well as co-ordinating the ITCRS, Marcos set up an NGO called “Brasil Cidadão” (Citizen Brazil).

Credit: IESE, United States