Paola Ferrario is board member of the Inter-American Network of Alumni Associations (IANA Americas), a network of Alumni Associations from US exchange programs in the Western Hemisphere. This is a unique platform where leading actors in the fields of academia, government, civil society, business, and the media share expertise, best practices, and recommendations for approaches to common regional challenges. Paola is also Past President of the State Alumni Paraguay (SAP) alumni Association, where she held the first International Visitor’s Leadership Program meet-up and the first Global Alumni Weekend with the participation of all IANA Americas board members from the Americas, as well the the Executive Secretary to the OAS, Kim Osborne.

She is also social entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Challenger Paraguay, a center that promoted initiatives for startups developing international startup contest along with the Global Entrepreneurship Network in agtech, creative businesses and tech startups.

Her experience with the public sector highlights her work with the Ministry of Women in Paraguay as advisor to the Minister in cooperation and international relations, the SME Ministry, Senate authorities and local governments, where she worked on issues such as innovation, women empowerment, participation, trade and commerce. Likewise, she materialized and coordinated institutional alliances.

She currently participates in instances related to startups, ecosystem growth and international relations, a task that she approaches from the perspective of the great challenges like ecosystem building on local and global relations. Her experience as a travel expert has allowed her to currently participate in tourist businesses as a mechanism to promote economic development.

She studied communications at the National University of Asuncion and has since then obtained a specialization as a medical interpreter, which has given her know-how on the health system and how to innovate in it. She has been a mentor to cohorts of alumni awardees from the State Department. Her work has given her the opportunity of becoming a Mashav and Young America’s Business Trust (YABT) alumni as well, where she became a scholar to the innovation and entrepreneurship program in Haifa, Israel.

She has been part of the ACE program on three tours; Texas, Florida, California