Global Sisters in Innovation

Achenyo Idachaba (Photo courtesy of TED Talk)

Visions for a New America

Bolivia is one of South America’s poorest countries, and one of its proudest immigrants in America is Lili Gangas. She believes in fostering inclusive tech ecosystems for all. Lili earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California and systems engineering certification from UCLA Extension, before doing an MBA at the New York University Stern School of Business. In 2018, she was named a New America CA Fellow. New America is a nonprofit working to amplify the reach of California change agents whose innovations solve public problems in bold new ways.

Writing about her efforts to empower the Latinx community in the summer of 2018, Lili spoke about her immigrant experience, tech, and innovation:

“The first time I stepped into the US was when I was 6 years old,” Lili said in Medium, an online publishing platform. “Little did I know what opportunities traveling 5000+ miles from Bolivia to California would bring into my life,” she said. “(S)eeing and hearing how heartlessly immigrant Latinx children are separated from their families in search for the same opportunities I got, haunt me. I could have easily been one of those 2000+ kids feeling the unbearable if it were not for a piece of paper via a green card lottery.” Lili went on to describe how she has used her influence and social reach to help the Latinx talent in the U.S.

“Through my work at the Kapor Center, I aim to create generational opportunities into the fastest growing, most economic upward mobile sector known as tech,” she said.

On its website, the Kapor (pronounced KAY-por) Center says it aims to make the technology ecosystem and entrepreneurship diverse and inclusive. “We are particularly interested in positive social impacts for communities that have historically been on the periphery of access to opportunity, participation and influence in the United States,” the center states as a mission.

Lili is the Chief Technology Community Officer at Kapor. In this role, she helps catalyze the emergence of Oakland in California as a social impact hub of tech done right – where tech, diverse talent, and action driven partnerships can tackle pressing social and economic inequities of our communities head-on. Oakland is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country. According to the 2010 census African Americans maintained their status as Oakland’s single largest ethnic group, with 27% of the population, followed by nonHispanic whites at 25.9%, and Hispanics of any race at 25.4%. Newspaper reports say thousands of people in the city have marched in support of reforms benefiting immigrants.

Before coming to the Kapor Center, Lili was an associate principal at Accenture Technology Lab’s Open Innovation team, building bridges between startups and Global 2000 commercial clients through cross sector collaboration. She was also a founding member of the team at Booz Allen specializing in crowdsourcing, prize challenges, and open data solutions for the public sector.

Before that, Lili could be found in the lab working on firmware solutions for the aerospace industry as a senior multi-disciplined software engineer at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. In addition to her day jobs, Lili was an active TechStars Startup Weekend DC organizer, a judge of the Small Business Administration (SBA)’s Startup in a Day Challenge, an open data innovation panelist at the White House Council of Women and Girls session, and advisor to Dreamwakers.org and OpenDataNation.com. Outside of work, Lili enjoys getting to know cities via distance races – she’ a 5-time half marathoner and last year completed her first full marathon. Two years in at the Kapor Center as the Chief Technology Community Officer, Lili wrote in Medium that they have started creating new narratives with their local community.

“Alongside Carolina Huaranca, Principal at Kapor Capital, we prototyped and validated ways to educate and empower our local Latinx community to go beyond seeing themselves as consumers of tech but rather see themselves as the creators of purposeful tech. In 2016, we hosted the first ever Techstars Startup Weekend Latinx in Tech edition in Oakland that reached 80+ Latinx community members. In 2017 we scaled to 4 cities with passionate local Latinx leaders and reached 300+. In 2018, we’re going to 9 cities with the goal to mobilize 900+. But we are not stopping there. We will also host the first Latinx in Tech (LTX) Summit that will bring together 300 community members from the 9 cities as well as serve as a homecoming for the talent that attended our first events,” she said. One of the key things Lili learned was that activating communities can be temporary if networks are not interconnected.

“This year we are connecting the public/private nodes of nodes in an inclusive tech ecosystem approach by working across sectors — starting by cultivating and investing in local Latinx community leadership,” she explained. “The need for a national cross sector collaboration and tech strategy was evident at this year’s Unidos US Conference,” she added quoting Maria Teresa

“The first time I stepped into the US was when I was 6 years old,” Lili said. “Little did I know what opportunities traveling 5000+ miles from Bolivia to California would bring into my life.”

Kumar, CEO & President of Voto Latino: “We need to start occupying tech, tech entrepreneurship, and venture capital like never before.”

During Lili’s New America CA Fellow fellowship, she was part of the cohort focused on opportunity, education, tech for good, and civic engagement. She helped in creating/fostering an inclusive tech ecosystem and regional economic growth.

Tanya Menendez studied technology and its socioeconomic impacts on rural economies at the University of California San Diego. Tanya’s research, “The Economics of Migration” was published by the University of California. She has been included in Forbes’ 30 Under 30. She has also been named one of Business Insider’s “Coolest People in Tech” and listed in PopMechanic’s “25 Makers Who Are Reinventing the American Dream.” After experiencing the pains of an outdated sourcing process as co-owner of a leather goods line, all produced in New York City, Tanya had the idea to create a platform where entrepreneurs could connect with U.S. manufacturers. The platform grew to become Maker’s Row, which has been helping more than 150,000 businesses get their projects produced in America since 2013. 