Rebeca Hwang, PhD

Ms. Hwang is a venture capital investor who has collected experiences as an innovator and inventor, founder and entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, educator, and ecosystem builder.  Most recently, she co-founded Kalei Ventures, which invests in early-stage technology startups from Latin America. Prior to Kalei, she was co-founder and Managing Director at Rivet Ventures, which focuses on companies targeting women-led markets where female usage, decision-making, and purchasing are crucial to company growth. Ms. Hwang is also co-founder of the San Francisco-based startup YouNoodle, which helps companies and governments engage with communities of entrepreneurs for open innovation and co-creation of products and services.

Ms. Hwang has been very active in creating and scaling ecosystems for innovators and entrepreneurs in several countries. Rebeca co-founded Cleantech Open, Startup Malaysia and Startup Nations Summit. She also serves on the Global Board of Kauffman's GEN, Imagine H2O, TEDx Rio de la Plata Accelerator (the largest TEDx event in the world), and was a member of the WEF's Global Council on the Future of Migrations, as well as co-lead the Access to Capital Committee of the Mexico-U.S. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council. Rebeca has worked closely several national startup programs, including initiatives in Malaysia, South Korea, Spain, Iceland, Chile, Peru, and Mexico.

Ms. Hwang was born in Seoul, raised in Argentina and educated at MIT and Stanford, and has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and as one of the top 35 under 35 Global Innovators by MIT Tech Review and was a TED speaker in Vancouver, in TED en Espanol in NYC, as well as TEDx Cordoba in 2018.