More Defining Moments from Rodrigo Baggio, Founder and Executive Director of CDI
In my last post (April 27) Rodrigo Baggio shared the defining moments in his childhood that shaped his vision and values. In his post Rodrigo takes us on his quest to find purpose in his life.
Finding Purpose
After two years I left Accenture to create my own company – Baggio Information Technology – BIT. At a time when all my friends were still living at home, I owned a successful company; I was living alone; I had a car, a small boat and was making a lot of money. I was a successful entrepreneur, but I was not happy - I was fine, but not fulfilled.
“In 1993 I decided to change my life;
One day I imagined my life ten years out and realized that if I kept doing what I was doing - all I would have is more money. So in 1993, I decided to change my life. I decided to pursue fulfillment. I did not know how or what I would do, I just made the decision. All that year I reflected many times about my experience in the Amazon forest; my experience with God. By the end of 1993 the answer came to me. It literally came to me in a dream. In my dream I saw poor young people using technology to better understand their reality. They were overcoming their challenges and transforming their lives. When I woke up, I was very energized; that dream translated the vision I had at 17 years old in the rain forest- Technology & Citizens Rights. Now at 23, I had found my purpose! In that moment I decided to invest my life to make that dream a reality!
That vision showed me the way. I had no doubts about what I was to do with my life. I created the first electronic Bulletin Board System for young people in Rio called Joven Link, (Young Links) This was an early form of social networking before the internet. The mission was to electronically connect different young people together - the rich, the poor and the middle class, to discuss topics and issues and to build bridges across social barriers. Young people responded. They were connecting on their school projects, talking about school, religion, and other subjects on their minds – they were learning from each other. Then in 1994, I did some research on the profile of the students that were using Young Links BBS. I was very disappointed, because 100% of the young people were from rich families. I realized that young people from poor families and communities did not have access to computers.
My next thought was, “ Let’s get them computers”. So in January of 1994, I launched “Computers for All” - the first social campaign to recycle computers in Latin America. I mobilized a group of volunteers and we began to collect old computers from companies and NGO’s. We repowered the computers and donated them to community base organizations. The media learned about us and began to write about our campaign. This resulted in more companies donating computers. After six months I did an impact evaluation and discovered that people in low-income communities were using the computers, however I knew they could use them far more effectively if we taught them how to use them.
One day a businessman called me told me he had hundreds of computers. We were so excited and gratified. We got a truck and loaded up all the computers. When we tested one computer and it would not turn on. We tested another, then another and realized we had been given technology garbage. Now we had all these non-functioning computers and that challenge sparked another idea. I thought - let’s invite the young people from the community of Santa Marta, the most violent low-income community in Rio, to learn how to repair computers.
We contacted a grassroots organization in that community and had them select 10 young people to learn to repair computers. It was wonderful; these young people were so excited to work with computers. They never could imagine themselves in front of a computer and here they were repairing them. That moment inspired me to combine my social experience with my business experience.
I finally understood the two messages I received from God, in my vision when I was 17 living in the Rain Forest – Technology and Citizen’s Rights. I found my life’s purpose.
From Vision To Reality
Why self-sustainable? Because we could train them to repair computers and become teachers and we could find the space and equipment, but we needed them to generate income to make the centers sustainable.
Why self-managed? Because my team and I are always an outsiders, the people in the favelas need to be the owners and managers of their own centers.
Why educate Change-Makers? Because graduating change-makers is at the heart of our work – our educational curriculum and methodology teaches and develops change-makers. This involves more than teaching people about computers or how to use Excel or PowerPoint. The goal was for them to teach people in their community to use technology to change and improve their lives and to improve their communities.
During the year I spent developing this center (from July 1994 until it’s inauguration in 1995), I talked with many people. Everyone told me , “Rodrigo, you are crazy” or “People in the Favelas won’t use technology”. At this time in Rio de Janeiro’s history, large companies were beginning to help the city’s high schools students learn computers. They were creating technology labs and placing them in schools. But they were not working with the schools in the low-income neighborhoods. Most people I talked to believed that poor people were not capable of grasping technology. But I had a vision, a dream, and I was determined to make that dream come true. Finally one company decided to support our center. C&A, the German clothing company, donated five amazing computers and a color printer. We selected 12 young people from the community and trained them three times a week - Four of these students were chosen to become educators.
There was one day I learned something very important about those student’s reality; I saw these young kids playing what I thought was cowboys and Indians. When I talked with them they told me they were not playing cowboys and Indians, they were playing drug dealers and police. I asked them “who are the good guys?” and they said “the drug dealers”. In the favelas kids were greatly influenced by the lives of the drug dealers; their power, money, how they dressed - that was their reality. We needed to give them more to hope for.
While we were developing the center we invited the community leaders to come and see what we were doing. The place where we housed the center was pretty drab and after the community leaders saw it something wonderful happened - they volunteered to paint the center bright colors. On the day of the Center’s inauguration there were over 300 young people lined up to sign up for our technology and citizen’s rights program.
Another amazing thing happened, we had only invited the community leaders and yet eleven newspapers, seven TV stations and reporters from two magazine showed up. The next day they reported what we were doing and people went from thinking I was crazy to hailing me as a visionary. Then the media put out public service announcements and put my home phone number in them. I was getting calls every day starting at two and three o’clock in the morning from people wanting to volunteer. One day I went to the center expecting to meet with 10 volunteers but more than 70 people were there. My vision up until that day was to have one center, however seeing those volunteers inspired me. That was the next defining moment in my life; the moment I decided to replicate the Technology and Citizen’s Rights Centers in other communities in the favela’s of Rio de Janeiro.
Now I was 24 years old and had to learn how to manage hundreds of volunteers. I had learned how to manage professionals when I was at Accenture, however managing volunteers was a far more complex. Those first 70 volunteers not only helped me to learn how to manage volunteers, they helped me to expand to more centers. By the end of 1995 we had expanded to five CDI community centers in the favelas of Rio. We then started to regionalize CDI, and in our second year we had centers in three Brazilian states. We had effectively started the digital inclusion movement in Latin America.
More on Rodrigo's amazing journey in my next post.
May all your beautiful hopes and dreams come true!
Michele
www.dreammakers.org
Finding Purpose
Soon after my experience with the indigenous people that lived in the village of Céu do Mapiá in the Amazon, I decided to drop out of college. My motivation to go to college had been to improve my practice in the field of social work. However, I soon discovered that I did not have even one professor who had any practical experience in the field of social work or social anthropology. So I dropped out and I went to work for a company called Accenture working in technology.
After two years I left Accenture to create my own company – Baggio Information Technology – BIT. At a time when all my friends were still living at home, I owned a successful company; I was living alone; I had a car, a small boat and was making a lot of money. I was a successful entrepreneur, but I was not happy - I was fine, but not fulfilled.
“In 1993 I decided to change my life;
I decided to pursue fulfillment”
One day I imagined my life ten years out and realized that if I kept doing what I was doing - all I would have is more money. So in 1993, I decided to change my life. I decided to pursue fulfillment. I did not know how or what I would do, I just made the decision. All that year I reflected many times about my experience in the Amazon forest; my experience with God. By the end of 1993 the answer came to me. It literally came to me in a dream. In my dream I saw poor young people using technology to better understand their reality. They were overcoming their challenges and transforming their lives. When I woke up, I was very energized; that dream translated the vision I had at 17 years old in the rain forest- Technology & Citizens Rights. Now at 23, I had found my purpose! In that moment I decided to invest my life to make that dream a reality!
That vision showed me the way. I had no doubts about what I was to do with my life. I created the first electronic Bulletin Board System for young people in Rio called Joven Link, (Young Links) This was an early form of social networking before the internet. The mission was to electronically connect different young people together - the rich, the poor and the middle class, to discuss topics and issues and to build bridges across social barriers. Young people responded. They were connecting on their school projects, talking about school, religion, and other subjects on their minds – they were learning from each other. Then in 1994, I did some research on the profile of the students that were using Young Links BBS. I was very disappointed, because 100% of the young people were from rich families. I realized that young people from poor families and communities did not have access to computers.
My next thought was, “ Let’s get them computers”. So in January of 1994, I launched “Computers for All” - the first social campaign to recycle computers in Latin America. I mobilized a group of volunteers and we began to collect old computers from companies and NGO’s. We repowered the computers and donated them to community base organizations. The media learned about us and began to write about our campaign. This resulted in more companies donating computers. After six months I did an impact evaluation and discovered that people in low-income communities were using the computers, however I knew they could use them far more effectively if we taught them how to use them.
One day a businessman called me told me he had hundreds of computers. We were so excited and gratified. We got a truck and loaded up all the computers. When we tested one computer and it would not turn on. We tested another, then another and realized we had been given technology garbage. Now we had all these non-functioning computers and that challenge sparked another idea. I thought - let’s invite the young people from the community of Santa Marta, the most violent low-income community in Rio, to learn how to repair computers.
We contacted a grassroots organization in that community and had them select 10 young people to learn to repair computers. It was wonderful; these young people were so excited to work with computers. They never could imagine themselves in front of a computer and here they were repairing them. That moment inspired me to combine my social experience with my business experience.
I finally understood the two messages I received from God, in my vision when I was 17 living in the Rain Forest – Technology and Citizen’s Rights. I found my life’s purpose.
From Vision To Reality
I launched the first the Center for Technology & Citizen’s Rights in March 1995, partnering with a grass-roots organization called Grupo Eco in the community of Santa Marta, the most dangerous favela (shanty town) in Rio de Janeiro. Rather than creating a social charity organization, I decided to create a Center that was self-sustainable and self-managed. Our mission was to develop and graduate change-makers who could teach technology and teach local people in their community to empower themselves. This experience solidified the three foundational pillars on which all our centers are built today: Self-sustainable, Self-management and our educational methodology that is focused on graduating Change-Makers.
Why self-sustainable? Because we could train them to repair computers and become teachers and we could find the space and equipment, but we needed them to generate income to make the centers sustainable.
Why self-managed? Because my team and I are always an outsiders, the people in the favelas need to be the owners and managers of their own centers.
Why educate Change-Makers? Because graduating change-makers is at the heart of our work – our educational curriculum and methodology teaches and develops change-makers. This involves more than teaching people about computers or how to use Excel or PowerPoint. The goal was for them to teach people in their community to use technology to change and improve their lives and to improve their communities.
During the year I spent developing this center (from July 1994 until it’s inauguration in 1995), I talked with many people. Everyone told me , “Rodrigo, you are crazy” or “People in the Favelas won’t use technology”. At this time in Rio de Janeiro’s history, large companies were beginning to help the city’s high schools students learn computers. They were creating technology labs and placing them in schools. But they were not working with the schools in the low-income neighborhoods. Most people I talked to believed that poor people were not capable of grasping technology. But I had a vision, a dream, and I was determined to make that dream come true. Finally one company decided to support our center. C&A, the German clothing company, donated five amazing computers and a color printer. We selected 12 young people from the community and trained them three times a week - Four of these students were chosen to become educators.
There was one day I learned something very important about those student’s reality; I saw these young kids playing what I thought was cowboys and Indians. When I talked with them they told me they were not playing cowboys and Indians, they were playing drug dealers and police. I asked them “who are the good guys?” and they said “the drug dealers”. In the favelas kids were greatly influenced by the lives of the drug dealers; their power, money, how they dressed - that was their reality. We needed to give them more to hope for.
While we were developing the center we invited the community leaders to come and see what we were doing. The place where we housed the center was pretty drab and after the community leaders saw it something wonderful happened - they volunteered to paint the center bright colors. On the day of the Center’s inauguration there were over 300 young people lined up to sign up for our technology and citizen’s rights program.
Another amazing thing happened, we had only invited the community leaders and yet eleven newspapers, seven TV stations and reporters from two magazine showed up. The next day they reported what we were doing and people went from thinking I was crazy to hailing me as a visionary. Then the media put out public service announcements and put my home phone number in them. I was getting calls every day starting at two and three o’clock in the morning from people wanting to volunteer. One day I went to the center expecting to meet with 10 volunteers but more than 70 people were there. My vision up until that day was to have one center, however seeing those volunteers inspired me. That was the next defining moment in my life; the moment I decided to replicate the Technology and Citizen’s Rights Centers in other communities in the favela’s of Rio de Janeiro.
Now I was 24 years old and had to learn how to manage hundreds of volunteers. I had learned how to manage professionals when I was at Accenture, however managing volunteers was a far more complex. Those first 70 volunteers not only helped me to learn how to manage volunteers, they helped me to expand to more centers. By the end of 1995 we had expanded to five CDI community centers in the favelas of Rio. We then started to regionalize CDI, and in our second year we had centers in three Brazilian states. We had effectively started the digital inclusion movement in Latin America.
More on Rodrigo's amazing journey in my next post.
May all your beautiful hopes and dreams come true!
Michele
www.dreammakers.org
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