why this needs to exist.

Public spending per student in Brazil, from primary to higher education, is US$ 3,762 a year — around a third of the OECD average. In higher education the gap is wider still: US$ 3,765 per student against US$ 15,102 on average across the OECD.

In PISA 2022, 55% of Brazilian 15-year-olds fell below the basic level of proficiency in science (the OECD average is 24%). Only 1% reached the top levels. In mathematics the picture is worse still: 73% below basic.

Only 49% of Brazil’s public primary and lower-secondary schools offer internet for students to use, and fewer than half have a desktop computer for them — in municipal school systems the figures fall to 40.8% and 43%. The school has administrative internet (88.1%), but it does not reach the student’s hands. That is the gap community technology spaces fill.

Only 29.9% of the Brazilian population has a command of basic digital skills, such as copying files and sending e-mails with attachments. Intermediate skills are held by 17.9%; advanced ones, such as programming, by just 4.2%. Among 14 countries compared, Brazil ranks 12th.

In the lowest income brackets (classes D and E), 87% of internet users go online exclusively by phone — in class A it is 5%. Those who depend on a phone alone consume content but rarely study, work or produce technology with it.

The 2022 Census identified 16.4 million people living in 12,348 favelas and urban communities, across 656 municipalities — 8.1% of the country’s population, up from 6% in 2010. It is in these territories that digital and educational exclusion is concentrated, and it is there that Casa Hacker works.

Of the country’s 127 thousand Computer Science enrolments, women are just 15% — and 19.5% in Information Systems. Meanwhile they are the majority in 14 of the 20 largest undergraduate courses. Technology remains the territory most closed to them.

The technology sector needed 797 thousand professionals between 2021 and 2025, but the country trains around 53 thousand people a year in technology-related courses — an annual shortfall of 106 thousand. A later measurement by Brasscom itself confirmed demand 30% above the supply of graduates between 2019 and 2024.

Brazilian private social investment reached R$ 5,8 billion in 2024 — but only R$ 1,3 billion (around 22%) was passed on to civil society organisations; the rest is delivered by the foundations and institutes themselves. And what is donated tends to go to organisations that are already large and mature: the money rarely reaches the grassroots organisations of the territories.