Women in Tech® LATAM Awards 2026

The winners of the Women in Tech® LATAM Awards 2026 were announced on Thursday evening at a ceremony held at the Palacio de la Proclamación, in the heart of Cartagena’s historic walled city.

For centuries, Cartagena has been a gateway between Latin America and the world. On Thursday night, it became the stage for a new generation of women who are shaping the region’s future through technology. Finalists and guests from across Latin America gathered to celebrate the innovators, leaders and allies driving change in the tech ecosystem.

The Women in Tech® LATAM Awards are part of the Women in Tech® Global Awards, a unique recognition platform spanning seven regions worldwide. The LATAM winners now join the regional winners from North America, Europe, APAC, Africa, MENA, and Caucasus & Central Asia as finalists for the global titles.

The 2026 LATAM Winners

• Aspiring Teen Award: Samantha Valentina Matos Gutiérrez, Panama – a young Technovation participant representing the next generation of women in technology.
• Best Ally Award: Kelly Acuña Núñez, Universidad César Vallejo, Peru – driving force behind UNIDAS, a network of more than 15,000 women entrepreneurs.
• Most Disruptive Award: Olga Isabel Pérez Encarnación, SARA AI – for challenging the status quo through artificial intelligence.
• Woman in Web3: Award Patricia Silva, Techverse – for her leadership in the region’s Web3 ecosystem.
• Start-Up Award: Marcela Santiago, CEO of TumiPay – for building one of the region’s most promising ventures.
• Most Impactful Initiative: Constanza Díaz Carvajal, Technovation Girls Chile – for an initiative equipping girls across Chile with technology and entrepreneurship skills.
• Tech Diplomacy Award: Lucrecia Corvalán, Policy Director for Latin America at GSMA – for her work at the intersection of technology and policy in the region.
• Global Leadership Award: Olga Cavalli, co-founder of the South School on Internet Governance – a pioneer of internet governance education in the Global South.
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Patricia Stuart, Rector of the Universidad de Lima – the first woman and alumna elected to lead the university, honoured for a career that has shaped generations of women across Latin America.

A Growing Regional Movement

The ceremony marked the close of a conference day that brought together speakers, partners and chapter leaders from across the region, including Women in Tech® Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama. Since the first regional edition, the LATAM Awards have grown into one of the most anticipated gatherings for women in technology in Latin America, reflecting a community that has impacted more than 250,000 women across the region.

“Every finalist on that stage is a proof point for a girl somewhere in Latin America who is deciding whether technology is for her. That is why these awards exist.” said Ayumi Moore Aoki, Founder and CEO of Women in Tech® Global.

Women in Tech® Global extends its gratitude to the partners, sponsors and volunteers who made the Cartagena edition possible, and to the local teams whose dedication brought the event to life.