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Global 3000 | "Computers for Everyone!" Social Entrepreneur

840 views · Published 14 April 2009 · 7:01 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: DW News · 2009 · News & Politics

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Every kid today is familiar with internet terms like chatting,surfing and blogs. Really every child? 79 percent of the people on the world are cut off technology which is taken for granted in the developed world.Brazilian Rodrigo Baggio describes the situation as digital apartheid. While aid organisations in Brazil were concentrating on providing food and clothing to poor people,Baggio recognised another necessity: access to the internet and computer skills. 

Many called him crazy when he set up his Committee for the democratisation of information technology in 1995. The organisation grew into what it is today,a multinational network with more than 800 computer schools in seven Latin American countries. 

Global 3000 shows the effect the organisation is having in Baggio's home city Rio de Janeiro.

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Today is Sunday and we're visiting Rodrigo Baggio and his son Filipe in their home. Filipe is a little shy in front of the camera,but at 9 years old he's a wizard when it comes to computers. The father Rodrigo states: I'm confident about Filipe's future because he's surrounded by technology. He's growing up with the Internet and he's got a computer at school. In our free time we like doing different things together. 


Like Filipe,Greicielen is 9 years old and has five siblings. The only screen in her crowded home is the flickering television. Her brothers are about to go to school but Greicielen is not going today,her teacher is busy doing something else,she tells us. Greicielens mother Joselina is a cleaner and single parent. She finds it reassuring that her daughter has a computer school to visit,and doesn't have to spend her days on the street. I'm glad all my children like going to school and learn about computers. Some children don't like it - but my kids love school. I support that. My eldest daughter spent a long time going to computer class,now she's being taught a qualification. She's very good and I'm not worried about her. 


Joselina's children don't know that the computer school they visit is Rodrigo's idea. The school is just one of over 700 schools of this type in Brazil. Rodrigo has a special relationship with this school at the foot of Providencia slum. It's one of the oldest and was founded 10 years ago. The children are explaining to Rodrigo what computers are useful for,you just have to make a few clicks and you have access to a world of information.

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