Veronyka Gimenes (dead name vinirusso)
Public Speaker, Web Developer, and Hacktivist in São Paulo (BR), Lisbon (PT)
I'm a non-binary person/travesti 🏳️🌈 ⚧️, left wing, from Sao Paulo, Brazil 🇧🇷 and a Italian citizen 🇮🇹. I'm graduated in IT/Software, Globalization and Culture. I'm a student-practitioner of psychoanalysis, marxism/communism, democracy, transfeminism, sexuality/gender studies and decolonization.
I'm a hands-on leader with a track record of delivering technologies to empower citizens and redesign society governance. I'm specialist in strategies, development and management of digital techs for public and third sectors.
I worked with IBM, Sao Paulo City Hall, World Bank and the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. I've spoken about these works at TEDxUFRJ, MediaLab-Prado Madrid, MIS, InovaDay / iGovSP and Red Bull Station Sao Paulo.
I've lived in Italy, Hungary and Brazil in the last years, developing skills against authoritarianism, disinformation and fake news.
In Brazil I coordinated a city councilman's campaign to recycle politics, a crowdsourcing platform for a presidential candidate's government program, and a direct democracy website at a capital's municipal council. I co-founded movements to change the electoral system and qualify city elections, and started a digital culture hub.
I'm the founder of Nucleo Digital Lab inside Sao Paulo City Hall (mayor Fernando Haddad), a Government Digital Service and Open Government unit. I created in the Urban Department the new Strategic Master Plan platform (2014).
I'm currently founder and leader at Nucleo Digital (www.nucleodigital.cc), an independent tech hub, providing services in areas such as Civic and Gov Tech, Government Digital Services, Cooperative Platforms, Digital Transformation, Sharing Economy and Blockchain. This network delivered more than fifthy techs since 2008.
I've collaborated with techs in the main brazilian elections these years (Haddad 2018, Boulos 2020 and Lula 2022).
In 2021 I began to recognize myself as a non-binary / travesti person, which lead me to the foundation of Código Não Binário (www.codigonaobinario.org). It is critical that diversity, inclusion and equity be at the heart of technology practices and policies. Recent Big Tech scandals like Cambridge Analytica, Facebook Papers and Uber Leaks and the return of authoritarian and conservative governments around the world show how the convergence of technology, politics and diversity is more important than ever, especially in the technology, public and third sectors. So I'm also leading Código Não Binário now to push this agenda forward.