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At 17, Eric Bartunek Negotiates Donation of 140 Starlink Antennas to Connect Amazon Schools Following Direct Request to SpaceX COO in January 2025
At 17, Eric Bartunek leads the donation of 140 antennas to bring Internet to the Amazon to riverside schools, following a request made in January 2025 to SpaceX’s COO, with deliveries starting in November 2025 in Manicoré.
Internet in the Amazon Brings Connectivity to 140 Riverside Schools
The initiative aims to install Starlink antennas at 140 schools in an Amazonian district. The request was made directly to SpaceX’s President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, in January 2025, with a focus on expanding access to connectivity in remote areas.
The first antennas were delivered in November 2025 in the community of Barro Alto, in Manicoré, located nearly 30 hours by boat from Manaus.
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The installation marked the beginning of the project’s implementation in the beneficiary schools.
According to Eric, the school paused activities for an hour to witness the arrival and installation of the equipment.
Upon activation of the service, students and teachers began accessing digital public services, lesson plans, management tools, research, and artificial intelligence resources.
The completion of the installations is expected by mid-February. The main goal is to ensure Internet in the Amazon for institutions that do not have access to fiber optics.
Experience in Sobral Inspired Educational Project
The motivation for the initiative began in 2022, during a trip to Sobral, Ceará, with the Lemann Foundation.
At the time, Eric was 13 and was impressed by the infrastructure and quality of public education in the municipality.
He recalls that many students were learning math at a level similar to that of his private school in São Paulo. This experience sparked a desire to expand access to quality education in Brazil.
A deeper engagement with educational inequalities occurred during an internship at Instituto PROA, an NGO that trains low-income youth from public schools for the job market.
He observed that many riverside schools can only be accessed by boat and lack internet connectivity.
“I saw there a very clear way to help: by introducing connectivity,” he says. For him, Internet in the Amazon could be implemented through satellite technology, as fiber optics does not reach these schools.
Direct Contact with SpaceX COO Made Donation Possible
Initially, the idea was to raise resources within his own network to connect a few schools. Later, Eric decided to seek partners to scale up the project.
After sending several unanswered emails, he managed to speak for about ten minutes via Zoom with Gwynne Shotwell. He presented his ambition and requested support to connect 10 of the 140 schools in the district.
According to him, the executive informed him that SpaceX was launching Starlink for Good, a philanthropic initiative of the company.
This made it possible to donate antennas to connect all 140 schools, surpassing the initial goal.
Eric states that he never imagined reaching this scale. “The scale ended up being much bigger than I expected,” he says.
Next Phase Focuses on Pedagogical Impact
Alongside the installation of antennas, Eric works to ensure that Internet in the Amazon delivers concrete learning gains.
He is supported by the NGO MegaEdu, the Connected Schools Institute, and Professor Martin Carnoy, an economist from Stanford University specializing in education.
According to him, training is being created to help teachers make better use of digital tools and enhance their impact in the classroom. The goal is to turn connectivity into educational outcomes.
Eric graduates from high school later this year and intends to start studying Economics and Education at a university in the United States in the second semester.
After graduation, he says he would like to return to Brazil to apply his learnings, possibly starting with the government.
Other Initiatives and Personal Routine
In addition to the Internet in the Amazon project, he leads his school’s investment club and participates in Juntos na Tech, an initiative in partnership with Unidos de Paraisópolis that teaches programming to young people in the favela in São Paulo.
Son of Florian Bartunek, co-founder of Constellation, Eric says he grew up with encouragement to study and discipline. He claims that his father was a great inspiration and supported him throughout the process.
To manage his anxiety, he practices tennis and muay thai. He states that sports help control stress and that being with friends contributes to balancing school and projects.
To young people, he advises persistence in the face of rejections. “The more ‘no’s’ you receive, it means you are closer to a ‘yes’,” he says, emphasizing the importance of continuing to try despite the difficulties.
With information from Forbes.
Esse rapaz fez mais pelo Amazonas sozinho do que os vergonhoso governos municipais, estaduais e federais fizeram em toda a história do Brasil!