Ruta N, Colombia
"Generación Tech"
Generación Tech acts from basic education as a response to this strategic challenge: to build early vocations sustaining the District's STI ecosystem. It promotes the development of STEAM skills and scientific thinking in teachers and students.
Purpose
To empower young talent by integrating STEAM skills and entrepreneurial mindsets into basic education. We aim to redefine life paths for youth in vulnerable contexts, steering them away from damaging environments and toward productive development. This project transforms public schools into hubs of innovation where students become catalysts for change and inspiration for their communities.
Impact
The program has been consolidated since 2024 (first version), allowing for the development of a structured and scalable strategy in Medellín. The program has impacted 912 students, with an adherence rate of over 96%, and trained 163 teachers. In its second version, in 2025, 606 students (53% boys and 47% girls) and 145 teachers (69% women and 31% men) enrolled, demonstrating strong female leadership in pedagogical transformation and digital appropriation processes. In a region where STEM/STEAM gaps persist, this result shows that equity, when implemented methodologically and not just rhetorically, has a positive impact on learning outcomes. In this second edition, students developed 51 technology projects in areas such as health and well-being, environment, and safety. The applied nature of these projects responds to the central principle of STEAM education: solving real-world problems.
What is innovative about it?
The solution responds to a thoughtful and cumulative construction of a territorial model of human capacity development oriented toward the knowledge economy. This construction is based on the early understanding that the District's productive reconversion process depended less on the exogenous attraction of talent and more on its ability to produce and strengthen it internally.
Who are the main users?
It is the gateway to the system for middle and high school students, aged between 12 and 16 years old and for their teachers. Also, some parents involve themselves in the processes.
Who runs it?
This program is run by Ruta N, with the Education Secretary of Medellin and some operators.