Alessandra Orofino

Political mobilization activist

Alessandra Orofino founded Meu Rio, Rio de Janeiro’s largest mobilization network.

Why you should listen

After working as a field researcher in Brazil and India, interviewing young girls who had been victims of domestic violence, Alessandra Orofino founded Meu Rio in 2011. The organization has fueled bottom-up local politics using a combination of on-the-ground actions and custom-designed online and mobile platforms and apps.

Orofino, who's 25 years old with a degree in economics and human rights from Columbia, is a believer in participatory politics and in cities as the ideal locus for reinventing representative democracy, and with her team she has designed Meu Rio as a catalyst for youth activism. Among its 140,000 members are tens of thousands of millennials, identifying common issues, pooling ideas for solutions, and pressuring decision-makers to adopt new policies and practices.

What others say

“Alessandra Orofino is one of those people who identifies a problem and immediately starts planning possible solutions. By using web and mobile technology, she ... is helping change the way Cariocas interact with and influence public policy.” — Rachel Glickhouse, RioGringa blog, 2013

Alessandra Orofino’s TED talk

15:15

Alessandra Orofino

It’s our city. Let’s fix it

Posted Nov 2014

More news and ideas from Alessandra Orofino

Live from TEDGlobal

Technological hopes and fears: A recap of session 2 of TEDGlobal 2014

October 7, 2014

Technology fuels social movements and opens up opportunities for political change. But at the same time, technology can radically compromise our privacy. In Session 2, speakers explore both potentials, with surprising conclusions. Below, recaps of the talks in this session. In 2011, a single email launched a worldwide movement against wealth inequality. Yet three years on, Occupy hasn’t delivered on its utopian […]

Live from TEDGlobal

Digital Reboot: A sneak peek of session 2 at TEDGlobal 2014

October 7, 2014

How do our individual online lives influence the larger structures of society? We begin this session with a multi-faceted look at how digital platforms help shape movements, and how the call for change can transform into something with staying power. From there, we shift to a discussion of surveillance and the need for privacy—an issue […]