Mariana Costa Checa

Mariana Costa Checa is a Peruvian businesswoman and the founder of the education nonprofit Laboratoria, which is addressing one of the toughest challenges facing the modern workforce: providing training and upskilling needed to elevate the playing field for underemployed women.

By focusing on high-demand digital skills such as web development and user experience design, Costa’s social enterprise is preparing women who have been out of the workforce, or employed in low-paying jobs, to launch and grow promising careers in technology.

After graduating from the London School of Economics and Columbia University, Costa returned to her native Peru. She started a web development company but was inspired to create Laboratoria when she noticed very few women working in the field.

The start-up began in Peru in 2014 as a six-month intensive bootcamp with 15 students. It’s now in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and soon the rest of Latin America, and has graduated more than 2,400 women, with an employment placement rate of more than 85 percent since 2019.

Its graduates have worked in more than 950 companies across industries, increasing their incomes by an average of 2.7 times and contributing to closing the talent and gender gap in tech.

Costa has received countless corporate and media awards for her disruptive way of tackling one of society’s greatest problems, and even had a Mattel Barbie doll made in her likeness.

“Our work at Laboratoria is a bet on the talent of Latin American women,” she said. “With the digital economy transforming our region, we want to make sure women can benefit from its opportunities and be part of building our future as technology creators.