Haroldo Jacobovicz on the Role of Affordable Computing in Education

Education is consistently cited as the area where digital technology has the greatest potential to reduce inequality. The argument is straightforward: a student with access to quality digital tools and content can learn the same material as a student in a better-resourced environment, regardless of geography. Haroldo Jacobovicz accepts the premise but is careful about what it requires to be true.

Access to affordable computing removes one barrier — and, in his view, an important one. A student in a remote area with an older device and a working connection can, in principle, reach the same educational materials as someone in an urban center. That represents a genuine shift in what is possible. But hardware alone does not guarantee it.

The technology works best, he argues, as part of a wider picture that includes trained teachers, relevant curriculum, and internet connections reliable enough to deliver content without interruption. Remove any of those elements and the computing capability sits underused. Add them all, and the combination can produce real change.

His company’s virtualization model is designed precisely for situations where hardware is the limiting factor. By processing computationally intensive tasks remotely and returning results to whatever device the user has, Arlequim allows older machines to run modern educational software that they would otherwise be unable to handle. A school that cannot afford to refresh its equipment — or a student using a family computer that predates current software requirements — gains access to tools that would otherwise be out of reach.

The psychological dimension matters here too. Students who feel intimidated by technology, or who have had experiences that made them feel incompetent with it, need more than a working device. They need an environment that is patient, explanatory, and designed around how people actually learn, not how an engineer imagines they should. Jargon-heavy interfaces and opaque error messages are not neutral inconveniences — they are barriers for users who are still building confidence.

Jacobovicz’s broader argument is that technology enables transformation but does not guarantee it. The enabling conditions — affordable access, sustained support, and intentional design — determine whether the potential becomes real.