Juliana Cardona Mejia

CEO & Founder, Street Entrepreneurs

Washington, D.C.

Juliana Cardona is the founder and CEO of Street Entrepreneurs. She is an inquisitive, passionate creator and organizer who is constantly working to drive action and local impact. Juliana founded Street Entrepreneurs in 2015 to provide entrepreneurial education to disadvantaged youth, with classes in shelters and prisons. While at community centers, Juliana saw many different groups attend–including 50+ unemployed individuals, underemployed individuals, and mothers with special needs children that required they work from home. This observation helped Street Entrepreneurs expand its services to focus on diminishing barriers to access entrepreneurship. Street Entrepreneurs supports problem solvers with grit and a good idea to launch and scale their enterprises, thus building wealth for themselves, their families, and communities.

Street Entrepreneurs looks for people with talent, hope, and heart, and creates human, social and economic development locally. Businesses Street Entrepreneurs has supported include: a low-carbon footprint high-heel shoes, helping kids with autism communicate using artificial intelligence and a catering company which hires and gives back to veteran organizations. Street Entrepreneurs hosts 35 classes for over 300 entrepreneurs per year. Prior to starting Street Entrepreneurs, Juliana collaborated with the World Bank Group’s Information Communications Technology Community of Practice for Agriculture to design and support the first Agri-Hackathon program in Uganda.