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Mariana Santos, born in 1983, is a Portuguese journalist and visual storyteller. She is a public speaker on media innovation and women empowerment through technology and aims for women to have a stronger voice online. She introduced animation and other compelling ways to use data to various Latin American countries. She became part of the ICFJ (International Center for Journalists) Knight Fellowship, received the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford, and became Knight Chair of Innovation at Florida International University.

Santos founded Unicorn Interactive, which is an independent media startup company on digital storytelling and was CEO from 2015-2017. In 2013, she created and is currently CEO of Chicas Poderosas, a non-profit digital training community that aims to train, inspire and involve more women in technological newsrooms.

Early life and career
Mariana Santos grew up in Algarve, Portugal with her mother, father, and sister. During her childhood, she competed as a semi-professional swimmer and won the National Championship of Portugal at 13 years old. She attended International School Algarve from 1990 to 1999.



From 2001 to 2006 Santos attended the University of Lisbon, where she studied communication-design. During her fifth year at the university she studied in Saint Étienne, France through Erasmus. In Berlin, she learned to make motion design and film. Reflecting on the Erasmus experience, Mariana wrote a book entitled If You Do Not Believe in Yourself, What Do You Believe In? The purpose of the book was to motivate her Portuguese colleagues to find their own way, even if it meant leaving the country, their friends and family. Following her graduation from the University of Lisbon and her time at Hyper Island, Santos began her career as a post production designer for Universal Music Publishing Group in Berlin, where she was responsible for production and animation for television promotions from 2007 to 2008.

Arriving back in Portugal, she did not identify with the type of work advertising agencies developed. She then enrolled in a 2-year digital media master’s program at Hyper Island in Stockholm, Sweden in 2009. While interviewing motion design professionals for a project, Santos began working as a Motion and Interaction Designer for The Guardian in London. Santos would stay with The Guardian for nearly three years, assisting in the development of visual assets for various stories.

Fellowship for the International Center for Journalists


With the help of her Journalism Fellowship, Mariana moved to San Jose, Costa Rica, leaving the interactive team at The Guardian behind. She received the invitation in 2012 from the American NGO International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). In accepting this opportunity, her goal was to develop the visual aspect of her investigative journalism in Latin America. Upon arrival, she joined a swimming team and later represented Costa Rica at the Pan American Games in 2013 in Sarasota, Florida. Much of her time is spent traveling across Latin America and the United States presenting and working on projects.

During her tenure with the ICFJ Santos assisted in the development of the first data journalism manual for Latin America. The project, PeriodismoDeDatos.org offers guides on data visualization for journalists across Central and South America. That same year Santos founded "Chicas Poderosas," a non-profit organization with the objective of bringing more women throughout Latin America into visual storytelling. Santos would continue to travel throughout Latin America, speaking to and working with journalists in various locations on interactive storytelling in journalism and news reporting.

John S. Knight Fellow and beyond
After a year in Costa Rica, Santos began her tenure as a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University, in September of 2014. Santos would spend her time at Stanford furthering her education and continuing work on Chicas Poderosas. In June 2014, Santos began working as the Director of Interactive and animation at Fusion Media, a joint-venture between Univision and Disney ABC based out of Miami, Florida. During her time at fusion, Santos led a team in creating content directed towards a young and diverse audience. The following year Santos would then take on the position of knight innovator in residence for Florida International University, in Miami, Florida, where she would also continue her work at Fusion. In July of 2016 Santos joined a team of developers, designers and illustrators in producing interactive content for the 2016 Summer Olympics Committee.

Currently, Santos resides in Costa Rica working with La Nación, a newspaper based out of San José, and is collaborating with Poderopedia in Chile, among other projects.

Chicas Poderosas
Chicas Poderosas is a Latin America-based nonprofit organization, founded by Mariana Santos in 2013, that aims to educate women by teaching them valuable skills in digital media, leadership, international journalism and new media. The organization is co-directed by Vicki Hammarstedt, a colleague of Santos. The goal of Chicas Poderosas is to "provide women with the skills and knowledge to research and report on issues that serve the public interest, to hold the powerful accountable, and to seek truth with accuracy."

At first, the organization was just Santos, on an ICFJ fellowship, traveling to many countries to help women improve their digital journalism skills and involve more women in technological news environments. She quickly built teams of journalists, artists and web developers to enhance Latin American media by introducing new ways of storytelling. Santos chose to focus her vision in the region of Latin America because as a Portuguese woman, she recognized first hand the gender inequalities that existed for Latin American women, specifically in digital media and leadership positions.

Benefits quickly spread across Latin America, and women who had previously received training from the organization volunteered as ambassadors to help widen the community by setting up their own locally. Today, there are Chicas Poderosas communities in 13 countries and over 3,000 women have received training from the organization. Although Chicas Poderosas is mainly geared towards women, people identifying as any gender are welcome.

The newest steps for Chicas Poderosas included starting an accelerator program in January of 2018, titled the “New Ventures Lab”, for entrepreneurial women interested in starting their own digital news organizations. The program started in Brazil and will continue to branch out from there. Chicas Poderosas will assist these women in the early stages of business development and idea formation. Additionally, the organization is focusing on expanding trainings they offer and are hoping to include training in areas such as video and virtual reality, intense investigative journalism, fact checking and identifying misinformation. They are also hoping to expand further by seeking out new partners in the industry.