Mariana Costa – Business Woman from Peru

The founder of Laboratoria, Mariana Costa created a platform that teaches web development and coding to young women from Latin America. She believes that anyone can be a part of creating the type of region or country that everyone wants to live in.

Costa has an education in International Development and is now the executive director of the social enterprise, which is helping many disadvantaged women. It is surprising, states Costa, as she never imagined that she would ever be an entrepreneur, especially in the tech industry.

However, everything changed when she met her husband and moved back to Peru after obtaining her degree. Due to the fact that her husband was employed at a software developer, she noticed that there was a demand for software development and decided to start a company.

As the company grew, she noticed that her entire team was comprised of men except for herself. This is what sparked her idea to help women and create change. Costa was now focused on empowering women and training them to find a job. She was named one of the 100 most influential women in the world by BBC in 2016.

The given name Mariana is the Roman feminine version of Marianus, which is derived from the Roman name Marius. The masculine name Marius is derived from either Mars, which is the name of the god of War, or from the Latin root mas or maris meaning “male”. The name was also interpreted to be a combination of Maria and Ana too.