Komal was a junior majoring in biochemistry at the University of Chile when she took part in a meeting with schoolchildren. There, she was surprised to see that, without laboratories or specialized equipment, many children were learning science primarily through theory.

The initiative spread from Chile to Latin America and the United States, reaching more than 100,000 students and teachers. In a pilot program with INACAP, 251 students improved their average grades by 31% and reduced the failure rate by 5 percentage points.

In 2015, Komal became the first Chilean woman to win the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award. She was also named one of MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35” in Latin America, and in 2020, she was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

But its greatest impact lies in making a laboratory accessible to thousands of students.

Sources: Explora CONICYT, Lab4U, University of Chile, Cartier Women’s Initiative, MIT Technology Review, and the World Economic Forum.

We are Kamal Dadlani.
We are Chile.