17 de febrero de 2016
The Public Affairs Counselor of the U.S. Embassy, Thomas Mesa, met with Celeste Medina and Franco Amorosi, participants in the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI) program. This new international exchange program, sponsored by the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs of the U.S. Department of State and implemented by Meridian International Center, focuses on developing entrepreneurial skills and enhancing economic opportunities for 24 young professionals from Latin America and the Caribbean. Selected participants initiated business projects related to one of the following areas: technology for social change, appropriate technology for development, mobile application technology, renewable energy technology, and public health technology.
The participants will attend an opening program in Miami, Florida, and then spend two weeks working at skill-based business incubator organizations in Miami, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Denver, Colorado; or Seattle, Washington. They will benefit from three days of professional programming in Washington, D.C. at the end of the program, which will include meetings with American institutions specializing in their area of expertise.
In their meeting at the Embassy, the Public Affairs Counselor highlighted the Embassy’s commitment to exchange programs like this that give young entrepreneurs the boost they need to further develop their business projects.
Franco Amorosi co-founded BILD, a startup that designs technology to make food production more sustainable. BILD has developed an automatic feeding system that enhances efficiency and profitability in farms using technology of the Internet of Things. He works as an Account Strategist at Google Argentina, where he has learned how to develop and expand businesses using technology. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Universidad Nacional del Sur. Mr. Amorosi was selected in 2013 as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum.
María Celeste Medina is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ada IT which aims to reduce the gender gap in technology within the industry, hiring primarily women to execute clients’ software development projects. Ms. Medina and her business partner, Ezequiel Gerónimo González, founded Ada IT in 2014 after winning a social innovation contest and acquiring seed funding. They also won a business plan competition organized by IAE Business School. Ms. Medina’s accomplishments also include winning the Change Agent Award from the Anita Borg Institute of Technology, a worldwide leader in promoting women in technology. Ms. Medina is pursuing a degree in Information Systems Engineering from the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional in Buenos Aires.
