Sergio Medina

After witnessing excruciating pain-points impacting children while working for the UN in refugee camps across East Africa, Sergio Medina founded the social enterprise, RISE. The startup seeks to accelerate humanitarian aid, such as food rations and education, by designing and building digital coordination tools for aid agencies. Prior to forming RISE, Sergio scaled innovative programs at many of the world’s largest INGOs and at multiple UN agencies.

Sergio holds a BA from Rice University, an MSW from Columbia University, and a Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship from Stanford Business School. He is currently an EMBA student at MIT Sloan where he is also Fellow at the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.  He has received numerous awards for his work including recognition as an OpenIDEO Global Innovator all in pursuit of RISE’s mission. As a Jacobs Fellow, Sergio looks forward to engineering equitable access to education for refugee children worldwide.