Claudia Pinzón Sacristán

Claudia Pinzón Sacristán redefines aging by positioning older people as active digital and economic actors who transform ageism into agency.

Claudia Pinzón Sacristán is challenging ageist mindsets and addressing market failures that marginalize older adults, particularly in their access to and meaningful use of technologies that now mediate daily life, from communication and shopping to the use of apps and digital platforms. By framing technology as a path to autonomy and resilience throughout life, she interrupts cycles of accumulated disadvantage before they take root. Through practical training and digital tools, she empowers older adults to reclaim their autonomy, embrace entrepreneurship, and participate fully in society, while generating data that encourages cooperatives, associations, pension funds, and other ecosystem actors to adapt their systems, creating a positive feedback loop.

Claudia is transforming how society understands and addresses aging, dismantling the systemic ageism embedded in the market and various institutions that mediate daily life, such as those related to access to technology, culture, and digital learning. She realized that the main barrier is not a lack of skills among older people, but rather the invisibility that occurs when the market and institutions design services for them without involving them in the process.

Her innovation lies in changing this paradigm: by strengthening older people's practical digital skills for daily life and economic participation, and by facilitating their active involvement in the public and community spheres, she encourages the institutions she works with—such as cooperatives, associations, and pension funds—to transform their mindsets and practices. This generates a positive feedback loop where empowered citizens and more responsive systems collaborate to build a shared vision of longevity: one that addresses aging through initiative, contribution, and social leadership, rather than dependency.
The driving force behind this change lies in the mechanisms that Claudia has been designing and testing. Through Digital Seniors, older adults strengthen practical digital skills that increase their confidence, autonomy, and economic and social participation. In parallel, Claudia has developed flexible intervention models that aim to make older adults visible in spaces where services and decisions affecting their daily lives are currently concentrated, laying the groundwork for future collaborations with stakeholders in the ecosystem. The disaggregated data that emerges from these processes allows partner organizations to better understand the barriers older adults face and progressively adjust their services and practices. At the same time, new forms of intergenerational collaboration are being explored, aimed at challenging stereotypes and strengthening the social fabric. This framework creates a win-win situation: older adults gain autonomy and dignity; organizations gain access to actionable insights about a historically underestimated segment; decision-makers have evidence to move toward more inclusive services; and society moves toward greater intergenerational cohesion. Claudia's model is not a training project, but an emerging architecture of longevity, designed to adapt, scale, and be replicated far beyond Colombia.

Claudia's work focuses on older adults most affected by systemic exclusion: those in situations of economic vulnerability and those who face barriers to accessing and using technologies that now mediate daily life. Many older adults in Colombia experience poverty, informal employment, and social isolation as a result of limited autonomy and public and private policies and practices that perpetuate ageism. At the same time, a growing number of older adults are excluded from essential digital services—such as government procedures, healthcare, communication, and access to digital platforms—due to a lack of access, support, and inclusive design, which deepens their marginalization and erodes their confidence. Claudia understood that strengthening individual skills was not enough and that it was also necessary to transform the mindsets and practices of the institutions that design services and programs related to aging. By making older people visible and involving them as active digital participants in the social, economic, and public spheres, it drives systemic change that promotes fairer digital inclusion and a new social narrative that recognizes them as active contributors to society.

Colombia, like many countries, is experiencing rapid demographic aging, with older people representing an increasingly significant portion of the population. However, the country's social and economic systems have not adapted to this demographic shift, resulting in policies and services that fail to reflect the diversity of older adults.
Culturally, ageism remains deeply entrenched, perpetuating stereotypes that portray older people as passive, technologically inept, and economically irrelevant. These narratives are reinforced by public and private institutions that often overlook the heterogeneity and potential of the older population. The digital divide is particularly pronounced: national surveys reveal that older Colombians are significantly less likely to engage with digital platforms, frequently citing fear, confusion, and a lack of support as key barriers limiting their ability to access modern services, information, and opportunities. Beyond infrastructure, the problem is deeply personal: many older adults internalize ageist narratives, leading to lower self-esteem and disengagement from civic life.

This exclusion is not simply due to individual capacity, but to the absence of inclusive and systemic strategies that actively engage older adults and adapt technologies and services to their needs. Furthermore, the lack of disaggregated data on the behaviors, preferences, and barriers faced by older adults hinders the development of targeted and effective interventions.

As a result, older Colombians face compounded disadvantages: economic vulnerability, social isolation, and restricted access to services that could improve their quality of life. This is not merely a matter of individual exclusion, but reflects a broader systemic failure to recognize, value, and support older adults as active and capable contributors to society.
The marginalization of older people in Colombia is rooted in a complex interplay of cultural, institutional, and systemic factors. Ageism is deeply embedded in social norms, shaping public attitudes and institutional behaviors that portray older people as passive, technologically inept, and economically dependent—narratives that diminish their perceived value and discourage investment in their development. These stereotypes are reinforced through the media, education, and everyday interactions, often leading older people to internalize these perspectives and disengage from opportunities. Adding to this problem is institutional inertia: the public and private sectors have been slow to adapt to the aging population, with financial products, digital platforms, and services rarely designed to meet the diverse needs of older people. This neglect is fueled by the misconception that older people are a homogeneous group with little interest in innovation, resulting in widespread service deficiencies. A key obstacle to progress is the lack of disaggregated data on the behaviors, preferences, and challenges of older people, which hinders the development of targeted policies and perpetuates their invisibility in decision-making. In 2021, approximately 7.1 million Colombians were 60 years of age or older, but only 1.6 million received a pension, revealing a profound gap in the economic security of older people, leaving the majority without stable income or financial autonomy. Furthermore, weak legal protections regarding employment, consumer rights, and digital access allow discrimination to persist. Politically, older people remain underrepresented, with few avenues for meaningful civic participation, further relegating their needs to the back burner on political agendas. Culturally, aging is often associated with decline rather than growth, discouraging older people from pursuing education, entrepreneurship, or assuming leadership roles, and limiting intergenerational collaboration. Finally, the digital divide remains a structural barrier, as many older adults lack access to devices, connectivity, and training, while existing technologies are rarely designed with usability in mind, restricting access to healthcare, financial services, and civic participation in an increasingly digital world.

The systemic marginalization of older adults in Colombia has far-reaching economic, social, and institutional consequences. Most older adults lack access to pensions or personalized financial services, leaving them economically vulnerable and dependent on informal work or family support, which undermines their autonomy and limits their ability to invest in their well-being. The digital divide further exacerbates this exclusion, as many older adults cannot access essential services such as online banking, telehealth, and government benefits, especially in rural areas where digital tools could bridge critical gaps. This lack of access contributes to poor health outcomes, delays in care, and increased susceptibility to chronic illnesses and mental health issues. Social isolation is another significant consequence, as many older adults experience loneliness, depression, and low self-esteem due to limited community participation and meaningful roles. Ageist stereotypes and the absence of intergenerational programs weaken social cohesion, foster misunderstanding, and deprive communities of the wisdom and experience that older adults can offer. Excluding older adults from civic and economic life also hinders national development, wasting valuable human capital that could contribute to innovation and resilience. Furthermore, the lack of disaggregated data leads to ineffective policies and inadequate resource allocation, reinforcing skepticism about aging-related investments and delaying much-needed systemic reforms. Taken together, these consequences reflect a broader societal failure to recognize and support older adults as active and capable contributors to Colombia's future.

Claudia builds bridges between older adults and society using technology as a key tool for inclusion. Her approach begins with data collection and profiling of older adults to understand their needs, abilities, and barriers. Based on this understanding, she designs personalized digital learning pathways that strengthen their autonomy, decision-making capacity, and active participation in daily life, while also transforming their self-perception. In parallel, she works with organizations and stakeholders in the ecosystem to adapt systems, services, and environments to be more inclusive and responsive to older adults. This dual strategy—empowering individuals and transforming institutions—helps reduce gaps, fosters intergenerational connections, and positions older adults as active participants in both society and the economy.
Digital Seniors is Claudia's flagship initiative, designed to close the digital divide faced by older adults and strengthen their active participation in society. The program responds to the accelerated process of digital transformation, in which essential services and opportunities are moving to digital environments while many older adults continue to face barriers to access, support, trust, and design. Aimed at both older adults in situations of economic vulnerability and those experiencing digital exclusion, Digital Seniors offers learning experiences focused on developing digital skills, based on gerontological principles and pedagogical approaches centered on the experience and everyday context of older adults. The content and formats are designed flexibly based on actively listening to participants and the real needs identified in the areas where the program is implemented, in collaboration with grassroots organizations and public stakeholders. The program integrates the development of digital skills with dimensions related to economic participation, purpose, everyday leadership, and critical thinking, supported by strategic alliances that strengthen the overall experience. It also promotes spaces for meeting and social connection that contribute to emotional well-being, self-esteem and a sense of belonging, key elements of active aging, recognizing the diversity of trajectories and abilities of older people and involving them as co-creators of their learning processes.
The impact of Digital Seniors is multidimensional. On a direct level, participants develop digital skills, practical abilities, and interpersonal capacities that allow them to access services, use digital tools in their daily lives, and strengthen their social connections. On an indirect level, many of those who complete the program begin to share their learning within their communities, naturally becoming role models and multipliers who challenge stereotypes and strengthen collective trust. Approximately one-third of participants continue to engage in further training, and nearly 80% actively use digital channels to manage procedures, access information, exercise their rights, and support others, demonstrating a transition from passive users to agents with greater capacity for action. This model challenges both cultural systems—by reframing aging as a stage of learning and contribution—and economic systems, by recognizing older adults as active participants in their communities. One example is the case of a participant who, after strengthening their digital skills, began sharing their knowledge with others in their community and supporting community initiatives using digital tools, demonstrating how the program fosters not only individual development but also community-level transformations. By integrating digital skills development within a broader framework of autonomy and participation, Digital Seniors helps shift the dominant narrative: from viewing older adults as technologically incapable to recognizing them as active, innovative, and leading figures in their communities.

Claudia recognized that training alone would not be enough to address the exclusion faced by older adults and that it was also necessary to intervene in the environments where services and decisions affecting their daily lives are concentrated. Based on this understanding, she began designing and exploring visible, in-person intervention models in high-traffic areas, aiming to reduce barriers to access, support, and trust in the use of essential digital services. These initiatives stem from the recognition that many older adults are excluded from digital environments not due to a lack of interest, but rather because of complex processes, a lack of personalized support, and fears associated with technology use. By designing accessible, flexible, and age-centered spaces, Claudia seeks to lay the groundwork for various stakeholders in the ecosystem—including social organizations, commercial space operators, and service providers—to move toward more age-inclusive practices. This line of work is conceived as an adaptable architecture, designed to be activated temporarily or on a rotating basis depending on contexts and resources, and to be progressively integrated with other strategies within the ecosystem.
The impact of this line of work is evident on multiple levels. Directly, older adults receive support and guidance in using digital tools that allow them to navigate everyday activities mediated by technology with greater confidence and autonomy. Indirectly, the visibility of these intervention spaces and the lessons learned influence various stakeholders in the ecosystem to review how they design, communicate, and adapt their services for the older population, producing a demonstrative effect. At a systemic level, the model challenges economic and cultural practices by normalizing the presence of older adults as active users of digital services, contributing to a transformation of public perceptions and institutional standards. Through various in-person spaces and actions deployed throughout the city, this strategy has reached thousands of older adults, generating lessons that have been leveraged by cooperatives, pension funds, and other organizations to improve their service channels, communication, and user experience. Beyond specific spaces, the value of the model lies in its adaptability and its potential to flexibly integrate into different contexts, according to resources and needs, becoming a lever for systemic change. A central component of Claudia's strategy is the systematic collection and use of disaggregated data on the needs, behaviors, and barriers faced by older adults. This evidence-based approach makes visible the diversity within this population and corrects the tendency of markets and institutions to treat them as a homogeneous group. By profiling older adults and mapping their digital inclusion trajectories, in part through Mayores Digitales (Digital Seniors), Claudia generates actionable information that guides the design and adjustment of more relevant services. In collaboration with a wide variety of institutional actors—including cooperatives, pension funds, social organizations, and public entities—she promotes more inclusive practices, ensuring that the impact not only benefits the participants but also structurally affects the institutions that shape their access to and participation in society.

Claudia's work extends through partnerships with grassroots organizations and over 100 organizations that are part of the National Aging Network, a nationwide network comprised mostly of older adults who hold social, community, political, and territorial leadership positions and who serve as key figures for mobilizing resources, securing scholarships, and promoting programs in their communities. In addition, she has forged alliances with pension funds and other actors in the service ecosystem, recognizing their role in the daily lives of older adults. Through these connections, Claudia's focus is not on operating institutional services, but rather on supporting and strengthening the experience of older adults in real, visible, and accessible environments through digital guidance, practical training, and trust-building. In collaboration with strategic partners such as 101Ideas, led by Ashoka Fellow Catalina Santana, and organizations like the Arturo Sesana Foundation, Claudia is contributing to a new mapping of older adults in Colombia, using data to highlight their needs, behaviors, and barriers, and to drive the design of better policies, products, and services. This work has led various institutions to review their service channels, processes, and internal capacities to respond more inclusively to the aging population. Additionally, Claudia strengthens the human resources teams of these organizations through sensitivity training.
Through active listening and the systematization of experiences in real and visible settings, Claudia translates the lived experiences of older adults into applied learning that identifies barriers, patterns, and opportunities for improvement in how institutions interact with this population. Based on this analysis, she generates concrete recommendations on processes, language, and forms of care that guide institutional adjustments and broaden the impact beyond the program directors. This approach, grounded in data and lived experience, helps various actors in the service ecosystem review their practices and recognize older adults as diverse, active, and relevant members of society, driving far-reaching cultural and institutional changes.
Claudia Pinzón Sacristán expands her impact through three complementary strategies aimed at systemic change, with Digital Seniors as the central organizing principle. First, it strengthens and expands the program as a continuously operating model, which has been implemented on a rotating basis in real, everyday settings for over two years. This allows older adults to develop digital skills relevant to their daily lives and recognize themselves as active users of existing services and technologies. This flexible implementation, based on active listening and analysis of experiences in different contexts, seeks to gradually consolidate itself in more stable spaces, without making premature decisions that are still being structured. Second, it scales the model through strategic alliances with social organizations, institutions, and actors in the public and private ecosystem, integrating lessons learned and data into broader frameworks that allow the proposal to be adapted to different territories and explore its regional reach, including virtual experiences in other countries in Latin America and Europe. Third, it promotes the participation of older adults as community leaders in the meaningful use of technology, fostering the exchange of knowledge and mutual learning between generations, and contributing to transforming social narratives about aging. Taken together, these strategies position Digital Seniors as a platform for change that connects older adults, institutions, and everyday environments, moving toward more inclusive systems and recognizing older adults as active, diverse, and visible actors in the digital society.

Claudia's model is also distinguished by the progressive activation of peer and intergenerational learning dynamics, which are currently being developed on a small scale and constitute a strategic line in consolidation. Through experiences like Digital Teachers, older adults who have strengthened their digital skills begin to share their knowledge with others, supporting everyday processes and promoting the meaningful use of technology in their communities. This peer-to-peer approach broadens the program's reach and strengthens its social sustainability by recognizing older adults as accessible role models and agents of change. Additionally, in some spaces, Claudia has incorporated intergenerational learning experiences where children and young people with digital skills participate as facilitators or mentors, fostering mutual exchange and respect between generations. These experiences—which have already included participants as young as eight—challenge age stereotypes and open new narratives about who teaches and who learns. Although these dynamics do not yet form a formal network, their early implementation demonstrates the model's potential to transform social norms, positioning aging as a stage of growth, contribution, and autonomy.
To date, Claudia has supported the development of digital skills for more than 2,200 older adults, reaching approximately 70 communities: 40 through virtual platforms and 30 in person. Since 2014, and especially since 2020, she has developed workshops and training programs—many of them pro bono—that have reached more than 3,000 older adults, supported by video content, ongoing guidance, and personalized feedback. During the pandemic, the forced acceleration of online learning opened the possibility of extending these programs to other countries, allowing the participation of older adults in Venezuela, Peru, Costa Rica, and Spain, who face similar challenges of digital exclusion in an emergency context. These international experiences, which arose in response to a specific need, provided key lessons on the adaptability of the model and the universality of digital barriers in aging, although they do not yet constitute a permanent, formal operation outside of Colombia.

Claudia's work is interconnected with various actors in the social, educational, and business ecosystems, and has been validated through her selection and participation in impact-based strengthening and investment initiatives focused on aging and digital inclusion, such as Región Plateada and other programs that promote models with scalability potential. Through these platforms, and in dialogue with community organizations, senior citizens' associations, and entities like the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, she has been able to strengthen the design of Mayores Digitales (Digital Seniors), expand its reach, and position the digital inclusion of older adults as a relevant issue within broader social and economic development agendas.

Looking ahead, Claudia seeks to consolidate her role as a leading figure in Colombia's digital inclusion ecosystem, strengthening models that allow older adults to participate actively and autonomously in increasingly technology-mediated environments. Her vision centers on continuing to develop practical digital skills applicable to daily life and creating spaces where these skills can be put to real-world use, strengthening the confidence, agency, and decision-making power of older adults. At the same time, it aims to continue influencing organizations and service providers to redesign their processes, languages ​​and experiences based on the capabilities and aspirations of this population, promoting a cultural change that shifts the focus from assistance to participation, contribution and dignity throughout the life course.

Claudia Pinzón Sacristán's journey as a social entrepreneur is deeply shaped by her personal history and by growing up close with her grandparents. This daily connection, especially with her grandmother, allowed her to understand the realities of aging from an early age and develop a profound sensitivity to the needs, rhythms, and capabilities of older adults. Years later, with the Percomputo Foundation already established, the experience of supporting her grandmother through her declining health reinforced this connection and gave her purpose an even clearer meaning. Simultaneously, her mother's work in community, social, and technology training programs with young people influenced her understanding of technology as a tool for inclusion and social transformation. In 2014, Claudia co-founded the Percomputo Foundation and, drawing on these personal and professional experiences, consolidated a vision focused on developing digital skills as a way to strengthen the autonomy, participation, and agency of older adults. Her leadership combines empathy, active listening, and strategic thinking—qualities that have been key to driving a shift in how society views aging and the active role of older adults.
Claudia's connection to the digital exclusion of older adults is both personal and professional. By closely supporting her grandparents and observing how many older people were systematically excluded from technological advancements and everyday services, she understood that the main barriers were not only technical, but also social, cultural, and design-related. The lack of support, accessible language, and suitable learning spaces often leads to isolation, loss of autonomy, and dependence in multiple dimensions of daily life.
A turning point in her career occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Claudia adapted her programs to virtual formats to respond to an urgent need for connection and access. This experience allowed her to reach older adults in diverse contexts and countries, and confirmed her conviction that developing digital skills is a key tool for reducing gaps, strengthening intergenerational bonds, and building a more inclusive society. Since then, her work has focused on demonstrating that, with the right support, older people can not only access technology, but also appropriate it as a means to actively participate in social, economic and community life.