Inspiring + Boosting + Connecting

Manizales hub is a community of 20 global shapers from diverse disciplines (health, entrepreneurship, human rights, culture and art, technology, tourism), with the local objective of providing spaces to contribute to the process of peacebuilding in Colombia by fostering collaboration and the co-creation.

Manizales is an intermediate city (430k population) in the heart of Colombia (The coffee region) characterized by its beautiful landscapes, strong academia and thriving young people. We want to connect with the global space by executing local projects addressing global challenges but also by raising our voice to the world on the relevance of small non-capital cities.

Juan Pablo Salazar founded the Hub in 2014 and our current curator is Camila Villegas. Since then, we have executed projects to highlight the young leaders of the city, commit local politicians on fostering education in the region, strengthening resilience in vulnerable networks through parks of colours and promote local discussion around the main issues in the city.

Since 2016, we hold a local opinion piece on Tuesdays every two weeks in the largest newspaper in the region “La Patria” to express our ideas as the young voice of the city.

We have proudly represented Manizales in World Economic Forum events on Latin America (2015, 2016, 2018), Annual Meeting of the New Champions (2018) in Shape LATAM (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), Shape Europe (2018) and Vatican meeting on social exclusion (2015). In 2015, we hosted the second national Colombian shapers retreat, Shaping CO.

Get more information at @globalshapersmanizales