Dra. Norha Villegas is the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Design and Applied Sciences, Associate Professor of the Computing and Intelligent Systems department at Icesi, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria in Canada. She is a Software Engineer from Universidad Icesi, Colombia where she completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Victoria, Canada. She has twenty years of professional experience and is an internationally recognized researcher for her contributions to software engineering which she has received significant awards from academic institutions and organizations. She is the first woman in Colombia to be a Senior Member of IEEE. For 9 years, she was Director of the Software Systems Engineering Program at Universidad Icesi, where she grew the program by 400% and positioned it as one of the best in the country, increasing girls’ participation. She belongs to important international networks and boards of directores, where she contributes to advancing software engineering and use her knowledge to train new STEAM professionals in Colombia. She has significantly contributed to the attraction of investment to our region by national and international technology companies that have energized ICT ecosystem. She has received: 2022 Woman that Build – Global Digital Leader awarded by Globant; nominated for the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award, ACM. (2014); Nominated for the CAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award, Canadian Association for Graduate Students (2014); Nominated for the Governor Generalâs Gold Medal for outstanding dissertation, Government of Canada (2014); First woman in becoming an IEEE Senior Member in Colombia (2013); IBM Canada CAS Research Technology Incubation Lab Project of the Year 2011 Award, Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) Research IBM Canada; and several best paper international awards.