Brazil's Junkyard Angel.(Rodrigo Baggio; Center for the Democratization of Computer Science)

Luciano da Silva Wanderley helped create Missionarios do Rock, an up- and-coming Brazilian band that recently won first prize in a Rio de Janeiro contest. He plays bass in the band and also happens to be its resident computer whiz. To show for it he launched missionariosdorock.com.br, a promotional Web site. Now Wanderley, 27, is looking forward to his first big break, in a manner of speaking. He and the four other band members are currently serving 115 years at Rio's Lemos de Brito penitentiary for armed assault and homicide. In a few months Wanderly will be up for parole.

Starting over is a nightmare for most ex-cons, but Wanderley talks eagerly and fearlessly about the prospect of getting out. "We have 23 tunes copyrighted and a CD in the works," he says as he clicks through the Missionarios home page. (Don't bother trying to look it up; it's not accessible outside the walls of Lemos.) His confidence stems from the band's success, but also from the highly marketable computer skills he learned in prison.

Wanderley is one of thousands of Brazilians who are reaping the benefits of an unusual computer school for the down-and-out. Since 1995, the Center for the Democratization of Computer Science, or CDI in Portuguese, has spawned 208 "Computer and Citizenship Schools" in 17 Brazilian states. On any given day, poor youths and adults can be found writing with Word 2000, doodling with Corel Draw, building charts with Excel or surfing the Web. Many of them learn a smattering of the basics and then move on. Some master the finer arts of computer programming. Hundreds have become instructors in new CDI schools. The school's 60,000 present and former students are a diverse lot. Many come from favelas in the big cities; some are landless peasants. They include the partially blind, psychiatric patients, prostitutes and prisoners. One village school inspired the Guarani Indians to add new words to their vocabulary: ayu ryrurive, the box that accumulates knowledge. The computer mouse they call anguja, or rat.

The person who set all this in motion is Rodrigo Baggio, CDI's 31-year- old founder, director and visionary. In his chinos and lace-up suede shoes, a computer bag over one shoulder and a mobile phone clipped to his belt, he looks like any other overachieving techie, but he doesn't talk like one. "The computer is more than a machine," he says. "It's a tool that can turn poor and underprivileged peopleinto true citizens." From dorm rooms to Davos, it is fashionable to talk about those on the far side of the digital divide--the underprivileged who have no access to computers and the skills they confer. Baggio has arguably done more about it than anybody else.

The son of a successful IBM executive, Baggio rejected the traditional path of a member of Rio's elite. As a teenager he volunteered at a home for street kids. In college he quickly grew bored with his studies but nurtured a boyhood passion for computers. He dropped out of Rio's Federal University in his sophomore year, went to work as a computer consultant and founded Computers for All, a campaign to get companies to donate used computers to poor communities. In 1994 he began teaching computer science part time at Santo Inacio, a classy private school in Rio. Then one day a volunteer in his campaign suggested holding classes in computer basics for poor kids in Dona Marta, a sprawling favela that shared the mountainside with the private school. His friends thought he was crazy--the poor need food, not technology, they told him--but Baggio was undeterred. He persuaded the big clothing store C&A to pony up five personal computers based on the 386 chip, the latest model at the time. The Roman Catholic Church offered a classroom, a local community organization was put in charge of operations, and Baggio climbed the steep hill three days a week to give lessons. By March 1995, the first class had graduated. Six students agreed to stay on as teachers. Baggio called a press conference to announce the new school. To his surprise, radio and TV crews and reporters from 11 local newspapers showed up.

Once word was out, community groups from other poor neighborhoods began to seek out Baggio. A far cry from the paternalistic ...