CALS Faces

Natalia Betancourt Rodriguez

For much of her life, Natalia Betancourt Rodriguez BSx’24 never imagined leaving Colombia. But after a series of experiences in high school showed her the large equality gap in access to health care around the world, especially among women of color, she decided she needed to do something about it. A high school teacher told her about UW–Madison’s King-Morgridge Scholarship Program. The program was created as an opportunity for students with a passion for poverty alleviation from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia to receive four-year scholarships to study at UW. It drew Betancourt to Wisconsin where she is now double majoring in biochemistry and global health. She also leads a team within AI4Afrika, a program that aims to bring artificial intelligence (AI) technology to communities where it’s lacking. The group’s first project is a chatbot, run through an organization called Care International, that is designed to educate girls in Ethiopian communities about sexual and menstrual health, topics that can be taboo in these areas. Read more: go.wisc.edu/a8tuky