Thiago Rached is Co-founder and CEO of Letrus in Brazil, where he leads a pioneering AI-driven programme to improve literacy and reduce educational inequality. Drawing on his experience as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, he founded Letrus to set students’ learning at the centre of the educational system, integrating advanced AI with localised pedagogy.

The Letrus Literacy Program combines natural language processing, adaptive algorithms, and generative models to analyse student writing, deliver personalised feedback, scaffold instruction, and provide actionable insights for teachers, school leaders, and policymakers. The platform is designed to enhance instruction without replacing educators, aligning all content to national curriculum standards and supporting classroom workflows.

The project addresses Brazil’s persistent literacy gap, where millions of students complete basic education without mastering reading and writing, limiting opportunities and reinforcing inequality. Teachers often face overcrowded classrooms and limited resources, while education departments struggle to monitor progress in real time. Letrus leverages AI to empower teachers, streamline feedback, and integrate system-level data, ensuring that literacy support is scalable, equitable, and actionable.

Under Rached’s leadership, Letrus has reached over 1 million students, impacting entire state education networks including Espírito Santo, Goiás, and Mato Grosso. In Espírito Santo, students using the platform achieved the highest writing scores on Brazil’s national ENEM exam, while studies showed a 9% reduction in writing performance between Letrus-supported students from public schools compared to the private school students on the national exam in just five months (J-PAL RCT funded research)

Teachers report improved efficiency and clarity, school leaders use real-time dashboards for resource allocation, and policymakers rely on Letrus data for informed decision-making. UNESCO recognised the initiative with the King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa Prize for innovative AI in education.