In 1997, the Secretariat of Distance Education of the National Ministry of Education started ProInfo, the prominent, nationwide computers-in-schools initiative. This ambitious effort is committed to equipping public schools with computers and to providing teachers with innovative training to ensure that they know how to integrate computers effectively into classroom learning.

US-Brazil Educational Partnership
In 1997, as ProInfo was being launched, Presidents Clinton and Cardoso met in Brasilia's Garden of Alvorado Palace and signed a bilateral partnership agreement for education. In the US, the partnership combined the resources of the US Department of Education, the US State Department, and the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) Latin American Caribbean Bureau and Human Capacity Development/Global Bureau. In Brazil, the partnership is coordinated by the Ministry of Education and its Secretariats, especially the Secretariat for Distance Education and the ProInfo program.

Early in the partnership, the Government of Brazil proposed that the US Department of Education establish a sister institution to the Brazilian Center for Educational Technology (CETE) so that state-of-the-art information on educational technology could be shared between countries. In response to this request, the US Department of Education and USAID agreed to support the development of a web-based clearinghouse to provide both US and Brazilian educators with easy access to the latest information on educational technologies. USAID contracted with the LearnLink program of the Academy of Educational Development (AED) to implement the project, which was called the US-Brazil Learning Technologies Network (LTNet). LTNet staff collaborates closely with professionals from Brazil's Ministry of Education and the ProInfo program to ensure that the LTNet web site meets the needs of Brazilian educators.