Marcela Tripoli

Her innovative approach to education through technology and empowering marginalized communities made her a key figure in social entrepreneurship.

Marcela Tripoli (b. 1978) revolutionized education access in Brazil through her creation of TutorBR, Latin America's first online tutoring platform for underserved students. Starting in 2008 with a simple website, she developed an AI-driven learning system that now serves over 1.2 million students annually. Her vision of 'education without borders' led to partnerships with UNESCO and the Brazilian Ministry of Education to provide free access to 500+ rural schools.

Tripoli's breakthrough came in 2012 when she launched the Digital Education Initiative, which distributed 100,000 low-cost tablets preloaded with educational content across favelas. This program reduced school dropout rates by 40% in participating communities according to IBGE studies. Her adaptive learning algorithms, patented in 2015, adjust content difficulty based on student performance data.

In 2018, she pioneered the Educatech4All coalition, bringing together 50+ tech companies to develop open-source educational tools. This collaboration produced the 'Math for All' app, downloaded 3M times across 15 countries. Her work earned her the MIT Technology Review Innovator of the Year (2019) and a seat on the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Education.

Tripoli's most recent venture, LearnCircle, connects Brazilian students with mentors from MIT and Stanford through virtual reality classrooms. This initiative has already facilitated 50,000+ mentorship sessions since 2021. Her TED Talk "Education Without Borders" has been viewed over 2.5 million times worldwide.