How Disruptive Innovators Prepare Today's Students to Be Tomorrow's Workforce?: Descomplica and Effective Remote Learning

In Brazil, income and race impact on standardized test grades. Standardized test grades are the sole criterion for access to most public universities, or the top higher education institutions. In response, the whole university preparation industry has emerged to cater to students from high-income families, rigging the selection process and perpetuating inequality. This paper aims to describe typical university admissions systems in Brazil to demonstrate how Descomplica is changing the odds of thousands of underprivileged students. With a clear picture of how this system caters to the more privileged, we introduce Descomplica, its tools and learning methodology, and the significant improvements it brings to students, who would not have a hope of joining quality higher education institutions in Brazil otherwise. Finally, the paper discusses the potential impacts and replicability for similar innovation elsewhere in the Americas to help decision-makers in the region especially when lockdowns and curfews are necessary, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.