Lorena Ríos is an emerging social entrepreneur. She felt the effects of social and economic exclusion while growing up in a low-income family in a small town in Paraguay’s interior. That personal experience shaped her worldview and ultimately inspired her to work on issues related to her country’s development and poverty reduction. She is leading diversity of initiatives with community leaders geared towards an integral approach to a multi-dimensional poverty. She is currently Consultant at the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), an innovation lab for the Inter-American Development Bank Group. She’s responsible for the design, management, implementation and monitoring of projects for the private sector. Our projects test new models for engaging and inspiring the private sector to solve economic development problems in Latin America and the Caribbean. We focus our efforts in three main areas: climate-smart agriculture, inclusive cities and knowledge economy. She implemented a financial inclusion program that uses cell phone technology to provide banking and financial services to low-income families, encouraging savings and access to tools that promote economic empowerment. She is also leading a community program that works with impoverished indigenous youth from her native city.
She received her bachelor’s degree in commerce and business administration from the Universidad Americana of Paraguay where she was awarded a full scholarship by the Itaipu Binational dam. Lorena initiated her professional career at the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), an independent fund administered by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) where she was responsible for the management, implementation and monitoring of projects for the private sector. She is currently the project coordinator of an IDB/MIF program for financial inclusion that harnesses cell phone technology to provide financial services and a personal wallet to low-income citizens via the Núcleo S.A. company.
Lorena was recognized as one of forty young leaders in Paraguay by FOCO Magazine. She was a panelist at the FOROMIC, Latin America and the Caribbean’s most important annual event on microfinance and entrepreneurship in Santiago de Chile. She also was a Paraguayan Speaker on the One Young World where urges President Horacio Cartes to take action on climate change by implementing more and better climate education, by introducing smarter agriculture and by better managing the country's natural resources.
She is Curator of Global Shaper Asunción Hub, The MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Awards Ambassadors of Paraguay , One Young World Ambassadors of Paraguay and She ‘s also Alumni of Internacional Visitors Leadership Program of United States.