Rio, November 20, 2002 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The percentage of digital exclusion in Brazil is currently estimated at around 88% of the population who don't own computers and 92% who don't have access to the Internet. Reducing this percentage to zero is the objective of the Brazilian Digital Exclusion Map, for which an agreement was signed today in Rio de Janeiro, by the Committee for the Democratization of Informatics (CDI), the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, the Sun Microsystems Company, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with support from the World Economic Forum.

Rodrigo Baggio, executive director of the CDI, informed that the goal is to reduce "digital apartheid" in the coming decades, to guarantee informatics access to all and enable the Brazilian population to utilize information technology as a tool to improve their lives, develop their communities, and participate in a society that offers greater equity, liberty, and solidarity. Baggio believes that the model of the Brazilian map can serve in the future for the creation of a Latin American Digital Exclusion Map. (DAS)