Sci-fi tween fiction about an evil organisation that hold competitions for children and if they win, they get put into a think tank, quite literally. Read around 2017-2019.

[Sheakie]

I can't remember the specifics and if it was based around vr, but their brains were plugged into a world. From the story, it was loosely a competition with people from everywhere(aimed at kids, maybe?) and this girl goes because she wants to provide for her family, etc. In the end, the boy she befriends ends up being successful or something- only to find out that the evil corporation that runs the competition trapped his body in the vr world and now in the physical world, his brain is being stored inside a "think tank"... I vaguely think I read this a few years ago, around 2017-2019.