Veronyka is a hacker of technology and society. She identifies as a travesti—a Latin American gender identity similar to a trans woman, but with distinct cultural and political meanings in countries like Brazil. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, also holds Italian citizenship, and lives in Sao Paulo and Lisbon, Portugal.
Her spirituality is rooted in African diasporic and Indigenous traditions, and her political orientation is leftist, navigating between socialism, anarchism, and communism. She is a lifelong student of Gender and Trans Studies, Philosophy, Feminism, Transfeminism, Marxism, and Decolonial Theory.
She holds degrees in Software Development and Globalization & Culture. Since 2008, she has been developing technologies to empower people and redesign models of governance. Her expertise spans strategy, design, development, and management of digital technologies for the public sector, civil society, and nonprofit organizations. She has worked with governments such as the City of São Paulo (2013-2014), the states of Ceará and Rio Grande do Sul (2011-2014, in partnership with the World Bank), Brazil’s Ministry of Culture, and many others. She coordinated a city council campaign (2011), developed a participatory government program platform for the progressive coalition PSB-REDE (2014), and built a direct democracy platform for the Porto Alegre City Council (2012). She also co-founded multiple civic movements like a movement to reform Brazil’s electoral system, strengthen municipal democracy, and founded the Casa de Cultura Digital (Digital Culture House) in Porto Alegre, Brazil—an early innovation hub for technology, activism, and culture.
Veronyka has contributed to technology and communications for major progressive political campaigns in Brazil, including Haddad & Manuela (2018 presidential election), Boulos & Erundina (2020 São Paulo mayoral election), and Lula & Alckmin (2022 presidential election)—all of them part of the democratic front against the far-right rise under Bolsonaro. Between Bolsonaro’s election in 2018 and his defeat in 2022, she lived in Portugal, Italy, and Hungary, while also studying countermeasures against hate speech and disinformation in Germany.
Veronyka has been a speaker at prominent international and national events, including TEDxUFRJ, the Democracy Lab at MediaLab-Prado (Madrid), MIS São Paulo (Museum of Image and Sound), iGovSP (São Paulo State’s Innovation in Public Management Forum), WeGov (Brazil’s leading public innovation community), Red Bull Station SP, Casa Queer at FLIP Paraty (Brazil’s largest international literary festival), Creative Commons Global Summit (Mexico), and RightsCon (in Costa Rica and Taiwan).
Today, Veronyka leads Núcleo Digital (www.nucleodigital.cc), an independent civic tech network delivering services in civic technology, public-sector digital services, cooperative platforms, digital transformation, and technology for social impact. Since 2008, the network has delivered over 100 technology projects. For a period, the Núcleo was officially part of the City of São Paulo government under Mayor Fernando Haddad (2013), operating as the Digital Services and Open Government unit. The team developed the award-winning Gestão Urbana SP (Urban Management SP) platform—which supported the revision of São Paulo’s Strategic Master Plan with millions of citizens—and the participatory budgeting and goals platform PlanejaSampa.
In 2021, Veronyka began her gender transition alongside a political commitment to placing diversity, inclusion, and equity at the center of technology and governance. This led her to found Código Não Binário (www.codigonaobinario.org), an NGO that merges technology, gender, social justice, and digital rights. Under her leadership, Código has driven high-impact projects such as an AI-powered investigative tool supporting local collectives in monitoring the Braskem environmental crime in Maceió; a landmark public civil lawsuit (Ação Civil Pública) against Big Tech for enabling anti-LGBTQIA+ hate speech in Brazil; and the legal defense of a trans artist targeted during the 2024 elections, setting critical precedents in digital rights and anti-hate litigation.
Código has also contributed to public policy with the publication of “Transphobia and Hate Speech on Social Media” for CGI.br (Brazil’s Internet Steering Committee, 2024), participated in platform regulation processes, and curated public debates on AI, diversity, and platform governance at ENAP, Brazil’s National School of Public Administration (2023 and 2024). The organization also produced cultural and political events such as “Corpos Marginais” at the University of São Paulo (USP, mid-2024); a public conversation with McKenzie Wark on hacking gender and capitalism at SESC São Paulo (late 2024); and the the panel “Trans Hackers” (early 2025), bringing global visibility to transfeminist perspectives in tech and digital rights at RightsCon Taipei.
She is also the co-host of Entre Amigues, a groundbreaking podcast that became a viral phenomenon in Brazil in 2024. The show amplifies LGBTQIA+ voices through intimate, in-depth conversations, reaching over 3 million views in its first season across TikTok, Instagram, Spotify, and YouTube. The podcast sparked a national debate on transphobia, hate speech, and Big Tech’s accountability, establishing itself as a key reference in Brazil’s contemporary queer media landscape.
See more: