Fellow:Lianne Vega

School: University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus

Pronouns: she/her

Languages: Spanish and English

Hobbies: travel, cycling, soccer, reading, foodie

I graduated from UPR with a degree in Industrial Engineering and am now a Business Analyst at Accenture. I moved from Puerto Rico to Chicago, IL to start my career - this change was huge and and no point did I feel ready for it. At work, I'm currently volunteering to promote financial literacy education through workshops for employees, reaching more than 1,000 participants each week and touching topics such as saving for retirement, investing, purchasing your first home, etc.

My goals for this year are:

• to bike 10 different bike trails around Chicago
• read 10 books this year (5 completed so far)
• learn some Portuguese
• find an ongoing volunteer activity

In the past, I've mentored more than 20 early-stage startups to define their target audience, minimum viable product and to get funding for their ideas, as well as provided free cost analysis services for a local startups.