“Words convince, example drags”
With the slogan “Asociación Innovactoras“, its founder and president Maria Beunza Mijimolle, CEO of HumanAI Tech, took part in the first panel of the International Forum on “Women and Sustainability” hosted by the Universidad de La Sabana, an event whose objective is to make visible the role of Latin American women in social and environmental innovation, as well as their leadership at the scientific level in these fields.
Together with the other panelists – Diana Patricia Arenas Blanco, Rudy Salazar and Carina Soledad Gonzalez González – ideas, reflections, experiences and projects on the impact of women from the perspective of social innovation were brought to the table.
Women with impact in social innovation
Maria wanted to bring more than words, examples – one from each country where REDWINN is present – because for social innovation to be real, it has to have an impact on life and not just rhetoric.
“There are many women doing things, but they are not known. We have to start using references and people who inspire us in our reality today, in our context, in our way of living innovation,” said Maria.
Among the many examples of the Innovactoras network – Anana Muyu and AUGE Acceleradora in Ecuador, “Paz para Mambrú” in Colombia, Alwa Group in Peru, Dux Academy in Bolivia – “I cannot fail to mention our HumanAI Tech innovation laboratory – with which we work with educational centers, universities and different entities – so that artificial intelligence allows us to know and develop emotional competencies. This is linked to innovation and entrepreneurship, because in fact, we investigate and obtain very interesting data on the potential differences between men and women, when we link personality, innovation and entrepreneurship”.
In addition, Maria reflected how “global competition makes us all have a more integrating, more diverse, more international vision, beyond the mere male-female complementarity; and this is something that I think women should push for, this vision of diversity, of complementarity, beyond gender, far beyond, that is, also by generations”. “Hopefully we can work on joint projects, not only in research, not only in good practices, but also in application; and this is no longer a question of justice with respect to women, it is a question of the future, we have to invest in a future in which we are all there and which makes sense for everyone.”