How Brazil’s Young Educators Are Reimagining Digital Tools
A new generation is building open-source solutions that reflect local needs, transforming technology into a force for equity and inclusion
Isabele Barbosa remembers the moment she first encountered the idea of digital public goods. As an education student in Brazil, she had only brushed against the concept of digital sovereignty in her classes. But when she attended a gathering of students, educators and researchers to discuss how technology can better serve communities, she became curious.
“I didn’t even know what digital public goods were,” Isabele says. “The discussions about education, activism, digital sovereignty and the free software movement really inspired me to think differently about how we can change and improve things for children and adolescents in schools.”
For Isabele, digital public goods, also known as DPGs, offered a glimpse of a different kind of digital future. Open-source and freely available, DPGs are designed to be adapted to local needs, unlocking innovation and strengthening communities. In Brazil, where disparities in access to technology still shape who gets to learn, teach and thrive, the potential is powerful.
The event that introduced Isabele to these ideas was a series of workshops and panels that explored how open-source tools could build more democratic systems and how digital technologies, if shaped with care, could empower rather than exclude. Isabele says the idea of a secure and sovereign system, created by everyone, is already transformative for schools. It pushes people to think beyond technology as a product and see it as a shared tool for collective growth.
The Office of Innovation’s work with UNICEF Brazil is a prime example where today’s youth could become a generation of digital architects and innovators equipped to build, maintain and own DPGs. By supporting governments, universities and grassroots organizations, UNICEF aims to ensure that these tools address the real challenges of communities, from urban classrooms to the remote corners of the Amazon.
Isabele believes that many young people are already deeply engaged with technology but often lack the understanding of how it works or how they can shape it. “Currently, a large part of the youth is very digitally engaged, but they do not have in-depth knowledge about how this digital world works,” she says.
“Truly understanding open-source expands how we think and act. It shows how we can collaborate and participate, with autonomy and engagement, in the use and even the production of these systems.”
Isabele Barbosa, Student
This idea of young people shaping the digital future took centre stage again at the Latinoware DPG Hackathon, where more than 100 young participants from across Brazil gathered to build digital public goods with real-world impact. The hackathon invited them to create open-source solutions that could be adapted to local communities, focusing on social impact, innovation and inclusivity.
Among those young innovators was Katherine Rojas Salazar, an Indigenous student who led a team developing an artificial intelligence tool to support the education of Quilombola communities. For Katherine, seeing so many people gathering to create was incredibly inspiring.
“It was really cool to see so many ideas emerging and people collaborating to create solutions that can really impact society in a positive way,” she says. She believes that the biggest impact of digital public goods is the possibility of creating tools that democratize access to information, services and opportunities, making technology a right, not a privilege.
These stories highlight what UNICEF sees as the real promise of digital public goods: a path to bridging digital divides and fostering local innovation, driven by the communities who know their own needs best. In conversations at events like the ones Isabele and Katherine attended, participants talked about digital sovereignty as a way to build local capacity and technological autonomy, helping communities define their own futures rather than relying on external solutions.
For Isabele, these lessons have already changed how she approaches her studies and her future.
“I believe that when we have access to this type of learning that opens our eyes, it’s very difficult to reject it. From now on, everything changes: awareness, actions and the desire to share this with the people around us."
Isabele Barbosa, Student
She wants to bring this consciousness into her classroom as a teacher, helping her future students develop critical thinking about the digital world and showing them that they, too, have the power to shape it. “It is necessary to question and develop critical and active thinking in these new issues that surround us,” she says. “But above all, to know that we, as young people, also have the power to act.” When youth understand the link between digital sovereignty, and how and where technology is built, they can help shape an equitable digital future.
For Katherine, the chance to work on a project that reflects the realities of her community has reinforced her belief that young people can play a leading role in making technology more inclusive. She says that seeing everyone come together with such energy and creativity left her convinced that when people unite for a larger purpose, they can build a world that is more just and more open.
UNICEF’s work in Brazil is rooted in this idea: supporting digital public goods and the communities that create them to build a digital future for everyone. For Isabele, Katherine and many others, it begins with these DPG community activities, the workshops and hackathons that inspire hope and show how technology can bring meaningful change to their region.
