São Carlos · São Paulo · Brazil
Articles

GustavoMorceli

For more than twenty years I've been building technology for Brazilian public schools — from a robot that teaches programming with no screen at all, to a weather station that brings data from the schoolyard into the classroom.

Gustavo Morceli
EDUCATION
Information Systems
UNESP
MBA · UFSCAR
Information, Technology
& Innovation
PETE
CEO — educational
robotics kits
BDN TECNOLOGIA
Founder — IoT for
education & cities
VORTEX888
Holding creator
INPI
Kit ROB patent
granted
SEP 2026
UNESCO Digital
Learning Week, Paris
Background

Technology public schools can actually use

I was born in Bauru, in the interior of São Paulo state, and grew up in public school, in a family that ran a newsstand. I used to take computers apart to understand how they worked, alone, technical magazine in hand — long before there was a word for that. The real starting point came in my teens, through Junior Achievement's Miniempresa program: that's where I discovered you can decide something should exist, and simply make it exist.

I'm Gustavo Adolfo Morceli Rodrigues, a graduate in Information Systems from UNESP, with an MBA in Information, Technology and Innovation from UFSCar, and an entrepreneur based in São Carlos, São Paulo.

My path starts from a practical question: how do you bring real educational technology to Brazilian schools, on the budget they actually have? Every product decision I've made since then answers to that — domestic manufacturing, a cost the public system can afford, and teaching materials a teacher can use without any technical training in electronics.

Today I'm CEO of PETE, which develops and manufactures educational robotics kits; founder of BDN Tecnologia, dedicated to IoT solutions for education and smart cities; and creator of Vortex888, an impact investment holding that brings these fronts together alongside NeuroInsights and Fagulha.

I found out as an adult, after two decades building companies, that I think in a way traditional school has no instrument to recognize — high ability combined with ADHD, what's called twice-exceptionality. I spent years carrying around the wrong verdict about myself, simply because no one had a way to see it properly. That experience, more than any business plan, is why I insist on bringing real instruments into public schools: so that no child has to wait decades to find out the story they were told about themselves was wrong.

Along the way I've also worked in research and academic community: I served on the program committee of the Workshop de Robótica Educacional (Educational Robotics Workshop) and co-authored academic work on robotics in education.

Published Work

O Fantástico Mundo de ROB (The Fantastic World of ROB)

A teaching collection on robotics and computational thinking for early childhood education, aligned with Brazil's national curriculum (BNCC). It comprises three age-specific volumes, each paired with a teacher's guide offering complete lesson planning and facilitation guidance.

3 years
Student book
Teacher book
4 years
Student book
Teacher book
5 years
Student book
Teacher book
Industrial Property

Kit ROB — screen-free programming

Rob is a programmable educational robot for children ages 3 to 5. The child builds a sequence of commands using interlocking floor pieces, left to right, the same way one learns to read. The robot moves along the track, reads the sequence, and executes it — more than fifteen different commands, with no screen device involved at all.

The design solves a problem specific to this age group: at this stage children learn through the body, and a screen removes the physical manipulation that learning depends on. If the sequence is wrong, the robot ends up in the wrong place — and the mistake happens on the floor, visible and correctable.

Letters Patent · INPI (Brazilian Patent Office)
BR 202021026041-1

Patent holder: PETE Comércio de Materiais Didáticos e Pedagógicos Ltda. Inventor: Gustavo Adolfo Morceli Rodrigues.

Current Project

ClimAção — data from your own schoolyard

Federal Law 14.926/2024 made climate education mandatory across all stages of basic education in Brazil. A law, however, is not a method: most municipalities received the mandate with neither the infrastructure nor the training to meet it.

In Cachoeiras de Macacu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, twelve public schools operate Hexa Clima weather stations, developed by BDN — 3D-printed in biodegradable PLA, solar-powered, measuring eleven atmospheric parameters.

In class, the child reads the data from their own school's station, makes a prediction, and compares it with an AI model's forecast. Sometimes the child is right and the algorithm is wrong. That's the moment they understand, in practice, what AI can do and where it fails.

The project was selected for presentation at UNESCO's Digital Learning Week 2026, in Paris, on September 10, alongside the Municipal Departments of Education and Sustainability of Cachoeiras de Macacu.

12
Public
schools
3,000
Students
reached
11
Atmospheric
parameters
100%
Solar
power
Engagement

Research & community

  • Aluno Monitor Program — network-wide training
    Coordinated the training of student IT monitors in public schools, later scaled nationwide in partnership with Microsoft Brazil. More than a million students and teachers trained.
  • Robótica para o Bem (Robotics for Good) — national coordination
    First Brazilian edition of the challenge, held at USP São Carlos. Qualifying students represented Brazil at the international stage, in Geneva.
  • RoboCup 2015, China — 1st place
    A team built around PETE robotics kits, from a project in Paraíba, took first place at RoboCup's international stage.
  • Workshop de Robótica Educacional (Educational Robotics Workshop) — program committee
    Reviewed submissions alongside researchers from UFRN, UFSCar and UNESP.
  • Academic publications in educational robotics
    Co-authored work on robotics in education, catalogued by CIEB — Centro de Inovação para a Educação Brasileira (Center for Innovation in Brazilian Education).
  • UNESCO Digital Learning Week 2024
    Presented “Hands-on climate change education through an Open Solutions IoT Smart Climate Kit”, alongside Sergio Ferreira, of the CLQ Institute.
  • UNESCO Digital Learning Week 2026
    Presented ClimAção at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, in the session on digital technologies for environmental learning.
In the Press

Coverage and published articles

About me
Articles published in outlets
Contact

Get in touch

For press, institutional partnerships, and speaking invitations:

contato@vortex888.com.br

LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/morceli