H.E. Yesenia Olaya Requene

H.E. Yesenia Olaya Requene

Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Colombia and PhD in Anthropology from the
National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her professional training began in public education
at the University of Caldas (Colombia), where she graduated as a sociologist. Dr. Olaya was a
research associate at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard
University. Her broad focus on diversity and racial equality in Latin America led her to become,
in 2019, academic coordinator of the Certificate in Afro-Latin American Studies at the Institute
for Afro-Latin American Research at the same university. She was also part of the short list of preselected members of the UN Working Group Experts on People of African Descent.
In 2020, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of Mexico awarded her the
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún Prize, in the area of Ethnology and Anthropology, honorable mention
for her doctoral thesis Vivir entre fronteras: movilidades de comunidades afrocolombianas en la
frontera Colombia y Ecuador (Living between borders: mobilities of Afro-Colombian
communities on the Colombia-Ecuador border). Until April 2023, she was Vice Minister of Talent
and Social Appropriation of Knowledge in Minciencias, where she advanced gender policies in
Science, Technology and Innovation (CTeI), opportunities for inclusion and differential approach
in the training of high-level human talent and linking of doctors. She has listened to civil society
organizations, academia and companies to move forward the articulations of the National
Development Plan (PND)

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  • Organization
    Technology and Innovation of Colombia
  • Profession
    Minister of Science
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16 April 2024
13:30 - 14:30 CEST Geneva | 07:30-08:30 EDT, New York | 19:30-20:30 CST, Beijing
Nashlie Sephus (Amazon AI), Mutale Nkonde (AI for the People), H.E. Yesenia Olaya Requene (Technology and Innovation of Colombia)...