Kevin Cordero, Fabiola Blanco, and Viviana Madriz met in 10th grade at CEDES Don Bosco High School in San José, Costa Rica — just a few years ago. They bonded around their passion for technology, collaborating on school projects, competing in hackathons together, and spending lunch hours dreaming up ways they could use their talents to help others. As friends and as teammates, they just clicked, with each bringing their own superpower to the mix: Madriz, the operations and planning whiz; Cordero, the graphic designer; and Blanco, the software developer.
One afternoon, the three of them were hanging out at Blanco’s house after school talking about big challenges in the world, as they often did, and the conversation turned to harassment. Specifically, the kind of unwanted attention, advances, and even violence women all over the world face every single day.
“Harassment is something we have all experienced at least once in our lives,” says Madriz, 21. “It interferes with women’s success because it happens at work, at universities, in the street, everywhere.”
