Biography

Tomás González Olavarría is the founder of Tribu, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to advancing innovations and institutional reforms to modernise democracy. Some of his most notable achievements include running the first deliberative democracy process in Latin America with a nationwide representative civic lottery and providing technical assistance to all the local governments of Chile that are part of the Open Government Partnership.

He holds a degree in economics and his career has centred on public policy, innovation and the impact of new technologies on business and society. Recently, he led the formulation of an economic development strategy for Chile’s decarbonisation and just transition agenda. He has also consulted on local procurement and contributed to the technology roadmap commissioned by the President of Chile for the mining industry. He has conceptual and practical understanding of blockchain networks, having served as an independent node operator. He also has experience in both business and social entrepreneurship and has lived in various Latin American countries.

Tomás has been recognised with the World Summit Youth Award, the International Visitor Leadership Program of the US State Department, the Academic Excellence Scholarship of Chile, the UNASUR Scholarship by CAF and as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum.

He serves on the advisory council to the Governor of Santiago and was part of the Summit for Democracy’s working group on deliberative democracy.

As a Policy Leader Fellow, he will focus on the institutionalization of deliberative democracy mechanisms.

Fields of expertise