A former Colombian professional soccer player, a double majored History and Finance student and an Analyst, Ilana’s dreams didn’t let her sleep even after earning all these accolades in life. She even received a full scholarship to study at Roosevelt University(Chicago). By 22, Ilana completed her 1-year MBA program as well. When she moved to New York, she worked at a private equity firm named Modern Holdings. Working as an analyst there, she realised how necessary creating technology learning is.
Foundation of “World Tech Makers”
At Modern Holdings, Ilana saw most of the fund investing deals were technology-based but she had no experience as a programmer or engineer. Therefore, she decided to go back to school and started studying engineering. After a year, she learned about a coding boot camp and chose to learn coding and software building. She learned more in 4 months than in 12 months of schooling. Thereafter, her life changed and a new career in technology begun. Few years later, she laid the foundation of “World Tech Makers”, the pioneering coding academy in Latin America. Her company offers adaptive software solutions and also invests in Research & Development, other than coding boot camps. Currently, the company operates in 5 countries- Chile, Colombia, Spain, USA and Brazil. In the next 12 months, they are planning to expand.
The Innovation Process
Talking about the process of innovation, Ilana says, “We developed a skills-matching technology which helps in preparing people for future jobs. We keep a hold on artificial intelligence and big data, further combine software with biology as well as chemistry, in the process of working with new biomaterials. Lastly, we invest heavily in IT solutions for education. Our aim is to provide education to children who are deprived of internet access. We make them available the access to robots who teach them how to code.”
Espinosa’s Contribution during Covid
Covid-19 in general affected an enormous portion of the society in every aspect. They had to cancel their on-site classes since most of the firm’s solutions were software-based. But taking a step ahead for contributing to the society, they have been purchasing and distributing educational kits to students. With each kit, a child is able to receive educational technology for the rest of the year. The company is also teaching computational thinking skills, biotechnology and robotics to kids. The main motive is not letting any child remain unaware of the current technological advancements.
Recently, Heartbit acquired World Tech, both are owned by Milkes only. She also runs Nativo Digital, 1st cross-platform app teaching coding to children. Ilana is also a Global Shaper from the Bogotabhub of Bogota.
