Who We Are
Atenea is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Springfield, Illinois, dedicated to enhancing the effectiveness of other nonprofit organizations. We support these organizations in becoming more efficient and impactful in their work, ultimately enabling them to better serve and uplift the communities they are part of. We focus on technology solutions designed to address the unique challenges faced by nonprofits. By leveraging our expertise and resources, we help these organizations streamline their operations, optimize their resources, and achieve their goals more effectively, thereby amplifying their positive impact and fostering greater community well-being.
Board of Directors
Vick Dini
President
Vick was born in Caracas, Venezuela, where he attended notable educational institutions such as Colegio Internacional de Caracas, Asociación Civil Escuela Agustín Codazzi (Italian side), and Universidad Metropolitana, which conferred him the title of Systems Engineer. However, due to the Venezuelan crisis, he soon found himself in the need to emigrate in search for new opportunities and Italy became his destination. There, he worked for an Italian multinational in the field of IT consulting, gaining insights into the operations and organizational culture of private, publicly traded, and state-participated multinationals. He also conducted the research titled Outsourcing: Avoiding Unnecessary Adversities. At the same time, he completed a master’s degree in Corporate Governance at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Afterwards, he attended a professional development program in business strategy at Harvard University. Subsequently, he founded Atenea NFP and Dini Tech Corp. Currently, he’s pursuing a PhD in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano and is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University.
Luis Ledezma
Vice President
Luis, a Venezuelan citizen from Caracas, has a degree in Modern Languages, with skills in the French language, from Universidad Metropolitana. In addition, he has two diplomas from his alma mater, the first in translation and the second in electronic music. Among the most outstanding characteristics of Luis is how multifaceted he can be, being an inveterate humanist, with technical and technological knowledge, which is reinforced with the use of computer tools throughout his career.
Luis is part of the generation of Venezuelan professionals who emigrated for a better life, but his experience highlights working with the public, customer service, he has worked as a submission officer at the VAC (Visa Application Centre) of Canada in Caracas, as well as a front desk agent for a recognized leading hotel chain in its area, and currently dedicated to customer service, but specialized in processing fraud cases in credit reports from the most important CRA (Credit Reporting Agency) in the U.S. In addition, he has worked as an audiovisual translator and as a language teacher which denotes an ever-changing story, where there are more things to learn and more skills to develop.
Yoselyn Plasencia
Member of the Board of Directors
Yoselyn is a Software Engineer passionate about industrial process automation who resides in the United Kingdom. Yoselyn was born in Caracas, Venezuela and since very young she has been a very dynamic person, who likes to take initiative and face new challenges and opportunities.
She grew up in a low-income environment, where she worked hard to get a scholarship to one of the most prestigious universities in the country to study what she was passionate about. She considers herself very fortunate to have received an extraordinary education at Universidad Metropolitana and to have had the opportunity to share her knowledge as a SIEMENS Co-Instructor and as a teacher at Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Then she said goodbye to her country: Venezuela, in search of better opportunities, she enriched her knowledge in the control field by completing multiple courses on automation systems and participating in projects in different industries: pharmaceutical, food, beverages, etc. Currently, she works as a Software Engineer for ATM Automation in England, in the field of robotics and automation.
In her spare time, she mentors Girlguiding, an organization that focuses on teaching girls different skills that are applicable in everyday life.
Luis Villalobos
Member of the Board of Directors
Luis was born in the city of Maracaibo, where in addition to spending his entire childhood and completing his primary studies, he graduated as a Social Communicator from Universidad Católica Cecilio Acosta. Aware of the importance of communication as a vital element for the development of society, he served as a communication advisor. He worked for several multinationals in Venezuela, also assuming roles of a more technological nature and seeking the integration between technology and communication. Driven by the understanding of multiple cultures and encouraged by the search for a better quality of life, he was forced to emigrate, forming part of the Venezuelan exodus since 2016. However, this has not prevented him from continuing to search for options to improve the situation of Venezuela from abroad.