By André Vieira
Brazil Stock Guide –The Inteli (Institute of Technology and Leadership) does not begin by explaining what it is. It begins by testing whether you understand what it intends to become.
At a breakfast presentation for invited guests, held in the first week of February on its campus, there is no inaugural speech or traditional academic ritual. Instead, there are slides filled with data, technical language delivered casually, and a vocabulary more familiar to corporate boardrooms than university corridors. The choreography of the traditional university is deliberately absent. What remains is method.
From the opening minutes, it becomes clear that Inteli does not present itself as just another engineering or computer science school, nor as an “education startup.” It behaves like a practical hypothesis: that Brazil can train world-class technological talent if it treats education with the same discipline it applies to capital, risk, and execution.
A recurring critique
“Welcome. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us,” said Roberto Sallouti, CEO of BTG Pactual and the project’s main institutional sponsor, in a tone that was warm without sounding ceremonial. He explained that the monthly gathering had an unusual purpose for an academic environment: asking for help in building reputation.
“The reputation of a university is built on what its alumni achieve and the legacy they leave,” Sallouti said. Because Inteli is still young, that reputation must be built in plain sight, without the cushion of time. At older institutions — Harvard, Cambridge, or even the University of São Paulo — tradition does part of the work on its own. At new institutions, tradition has to be constructed.
Sallouti traced Inteli’s origins as a response to a familiar criticism. During trips to Silicon Valley while leading BTG’s digital transformation, alongside banker André Esteves, a co-founder of the project, he repeatedly heard the same diagnosis: investors were reluctant to bet on Brazil because the country failed to produce engineers at scale — not only in quantity, but with the capacity to support global technology companies. The second time he heard it, Sallouti chose not to argue. He agreed quietly — and decided to act.
Brazil’s structural bottleneck
The urgency shows up in the numbers. Projections suggest Brazil is heading toward a shortfall of more than one million technology professionals by 2030. But the problem begins earlier. Only 1.8% of Brazilian university students are enrolled in Engineering or Computer Science. In computing programs, dropout rates reach 53%. Even among the country’s top institutions, the ten best-rated programs together offer just about 1,200 seats per year — a scale incompatible with demand that is already weighing on productivity, innovation, and social mobility. The bottleneck is not only at the top. It is structural.
According to Sallouti, Inteli was founded in 2019 on one observation and three convictions. The observation was straightforward: there are not enough technology professionals. The convictions were more demanding. First, only work and education transform countries. Second, complaining about Brazil is comfortable; building something in it requires method, capital, and exposure. Third, despite the country’s chronic inferiority complex, Brazil is capable of creating world-class institutions when incentives and execution are aligned.
The ambition is explicit. Inteli is often described as a Brazilian version of MIT — not as a replica, but as a reference point for impact and rigor. The method, its founders insist, is different. So different from the traditional university model that they argue it could, in theory, be patented.
When Maíra Habimorad, Inteli’s CEO, took the microphone, the narrative shifted from foundational to operational. “This must be the 49th breakfast meeting we’ve held,” she said, recalling that the project took shape during the pandemic, when it was still little more than “a voice and a guitar.”
The new method
The heart of the project is not the renovated building that once housed part of the Institute for Technological Research on São Paulo’s university campus, next to the University of São Paulo. It lies in a proprietary pedagogy. Instead of organizing education around disciplines, semesters, and exams, Inteli operates in intensive ten-week cycles built around real projects, with continuous delivery, evidence-based assessment, and individual tracking. Knowledge is not accumulated for tests; it is mobilized to solve concrete problems.
The model does not promise comfort. It demands commitment. According to Inteli’s leadership, between 7% and 8% of students fail courses, and a similar proportion drop out. There is a structured recovery process, with tailored cohorts built around individual learning gaps. But the method does not accommodate those who cannot keep pace. Difficulty surfaces early — in bi-weekly delivery cycles — rather than after semesters of silent frustration. Rigor is part of the design.
More than a pedagogy, the model functions as an educational operating system. Its logic mirrors the corporate world: sprint cycles, bi-weekly targets, constant reviews. Infrastructure was designed to serve the method, not the other way around. The results are measurable: 749 prototypes delivered, 105 active partners, and an average net promoter score of 92.6% among companies that receive student projects. The goal is not simply to teach engineering, but to organize execution at scale.
A deliberate melting pot
Today, Inteli enrolls 621 undergraduate students from more than 100 Brazilian cities. About 55% receive scholarships — just over 340 students — and 24% identify as Black or mixed race. Most are between 20 and 23 years old, and women account for 27% of the student body, above the average for engineering programs.
Sallouti often describes this mix as a deliberate melting pot. “You have the children of my friends, the friends of my children, and students who were scattered across Brazil looking for an opportunity,” he said. “When you put all of that together, the oxygenation is incredibly powerful.”
Scholarships are treated as strategic infrastructure, not philanthropy. With monthly tuition around R$7,700, Inteli operates at cost levels comparable to elite private schools. That cost structure explains the aggressive scholarship design: without financial predictability, students do not remain long enough for the method to work. There are multiple models — from “adopt a student,” which fully covers four years of study, to targeted funds for housing, exchange programs, applied research, and equipment, with annual costs starting at R$12,000. A full scholarship costs about R$131,000 per year, while a perpetual seat requires roughly R$1.95 million in funding. “We’ll only succeed when we’re no longer needed,” Sallouti said.
Inteli has already graduated its first undergraduate cohort. The numbers close the loop on the initial experiment. Ninety-seven percent of graduates left with their careers already on track — a high figure even for established institutions. Of these, 49% are in regular internships, 36% have been hired full-time, and 12% are pursuing entrepreneurship or applied research. Average monthly pay is about R$4,394, with 37% earning more than R$5,000. Among scholarship recipients, per-capita income rose an average of 147% over the course of the program.
When the method meets people
This is where the method becomes tangible. Débora Pereira, from Campina Grande in northeastern Brazil, recalls that Inteli offers little time for adjustment. Within weeks, students from vastly different backgrounds are working side by side, trying to make a game function, deploy an application, or convince a partner that a data model makes sense. “Everyone gets into the same boat,” she said. The method exposes weaknesses quickly — and forces collective learning.
Pedro Faria, from Londrina in southern Brazil, described a different discomfort. After a first year of near-constant supervision, the institution deliberately steps back. “They let go,” he said. Autonomy comes with accountability. By the third year, with mandatory internships, daily life starts to resemble professional reality. Mistakes still teach — but they now have a cost.
Before it becomes a replicable model, Inteli remains a work in progress — a bet that Brazil can produce world-class technological talent if education is treated as a strategic project, backed by method, capital, metrics, and patience. For students who have already passed through its halls, the results are no longer theoretical.
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