M.I.N.As · Innovation Strategy
Advancing gender equity across a major tech district, by coordinating a federally-funded program spanning education, entrepreneurship and infrastructure
- Program Coordination
- Innovation Strategy
- Gender Equity
- Systems Design
Context
Porto Digital, one of Latin America's largest innovation districts (Recife, Brazil). M.I.N.As (Women in Innovation, Business, and Arts) was a federally-funded initiative, backed by Brazil's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTIC), designed to position Porto Digital as an active promoter of gender parity in tech.
My role
Program Coordinator, translating strategic objectives into concrete action: planning and executing initiatives, building ecosystem partnerships, and managing vendors, suppliers, and institutional relationships across three distinct audiences: students, professionals, and the broader innovation community.
Objective
Move gender equity from a stated value to structural infrastructure inside a major tech ecosystem, not just a series of one-off events.
Company & User
The problem
Gender equity in the tech ecosystem was treated as a peripheral cause, not a structural challenge, and one of the most concrete barriers to women staying in the workforce (the absence of support infrastructure for working mothers) had never been addressed at the district level.
Three audiences, one ecosystem
Students needed entry points into tech careers. Professionals needed qualification, entrepreneurship support, and market access. The broader innovation community needed to internalize gender equity as core to the ecosystem's identity, not a side initiative. The program had to integrate all three into a single coherent effort, not three disconnected tracks.
What success looked like
Structural, physical proof that the ecosystem had changed, not just messaging about intent to change.
Process
The program was structured around 4 initiative pillars:
Education & Qualification
Designed and facilitated specialized STEM workshops for high school and university students, creating structured entry points into technology and innovation careers.
Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Planned and orchestrated women-led Hackathons and Entrepreneurship Programs focused on business model validation and technical skill-building, partnering with ecosystem organizations to secure mentor, investor, and market access.
Social Infrastructure
Coordinated the launch of the Parental Space at Moeda 50 (inaugurated 2020) and led the development process for a local childcare center within the tech district, directly addressing the infrastructure barrier keeping working mothers out of the workforce.
Community Building
Produced the M.I.N.As Festival, bringing the ecosystem together for networking, knowledge exchange, and professional visibility.
Case within the case — adapting the Festival to COVID-19 (2020)
When in-person gatherings became impossible, the Festival das MINAs went fully digital, reaching a significantly wider audience than the physical format would have allowed. Restructured into a 2-day event across 4 content tracks (Technology, Communication, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship), with sessions ranging from programming for non-programmers to a reading circle on "Women Who Run With the Wolves." My responsibilities covered the full event lifecycle: sponsorship acquisition, vendor and supplier management, content curation across all four tracks, and hosting both days.
Results & Impact
- The district's first Parental Space launched at Moeda 50 (2020), a concrete structural response to a documented workforce barrier
- A local childcare center development process led, extending that infrastructure work beyond a single space
- STEM workshops delivered to high school and university students, building a real pipeline into tech careers
- Women-led hackathons and entrepreneurship programs run, connecting participants to mentors, investors, and market opportunities
- Festival das MINAs pivoted fully digital during the pandemic, reaching a wider audience than the original physical format, without losing its 4-track program structure
Closure & Relevance
Coordinating a federally-funded gender equity program inside a large innovation ecosystem is, at its core, a systems design challenge. Every initiative had to work at multiple levels simultaneously: changing the narrative externally, shifting culture internally, and addressing the physical and social conditions that determine who actually gets to participate in innovation in the first place.
Why this matters for Innovation Strategy and Program Management roles
This case is the clearest proof point of multi-stakeholder program execution at ecosystem scale, spanning education, entrepreneurship, physical infrastructure, and public-facing events, all tied to a single strategic mandate and delivered under real institutional and budget constraints (federal funding, vendor management, sponsorship acquisition).