Outliers - Montserrat Fregoso

When I was a little girl, I experienced a great deal of violence, together with my family, in my community. I would have to throw myself on the floor because of the shootings, bombs, grenades… I was always very frightened in situations that no little girl, nor anyone, should have to live through. But soon, I found the hope that everything would be all right.

I am Montserrat Fregoso, ambassador of Rebel Girls and co-founder of SciArt Party.

I studied a degree in Business Strategy and Transformation with a scholarship awarded by Tec de Monterrey.

At present, I work on multidisciplinary projects internationally and there is nothing else I would rather be doing.

From an early age, I liked being active and involved in many projects, from learning ballet and being a cheer coach to founding projects and events. In high school, I was invited to the United Nations for the first time, to an event in New York, and even though I didn't have the budget to go at the time, I didn't let that stop me. I looked everywhere for sponsorships, and managed to raise 100% of the budget. Once I returned to Mexico, I began creating different projects around the Sustainable Development Goals. We Stand for Change emerged from a student fair where I talked about my ideas for solutions and, in the end, many more people signed up than I imagined. It is now a student group that continues to grow, managing to generate more than 17 projects in two years.

At the start of my career, I had the opportunity to participate in the UN Commission on the Status of Women, in an event where I would present the projects on which I was working. I participated as a panelist and translator, since apart from being fluent in English, French, and German, I also understand Italian and Portuguese.

After this incredible experience in which I collaborated directly with organizations such as Tech Girl International and The Girl of the USA, I returned to help an orphanage for girls where the main book we read was Rebel Girls.

This book helped me so much in a stage of my life where I had been told “No” regarding a major project I hoped to work on. So, I joined the Rebel Girls team and have been working with them for three years.  I was one of the first five people to work with them and from being a company that sells books, we became a world record holder. Our growth has been impressive, and we are now a gigantic international team. Coming into contact with these amazing women from the organization and the books allowed me to meet Merritt Moore, a U.S. dancer and quantum physicist. I invited her to participate in an event at Tec and, afterwards, we began to talk and hold meetings on a possible joint project. This led to the creation of SciArt Party. In the middle of the peak of the pandemic we decided to hold a small Zoom meeting to discuss how we could remain inspired and motivated during lockdown. In less than 12 hours more than 450 people had signed up. And this is how a project that continues to grow exponentially emerged.

My motto in life is that you must believe in your dreams with every cell in your body.

Remaining steadfast in the face of failure has been the biggest challenge because, like everyone, I have undergone major failures in my life, and it is thanks to them that I have learned and grown enormously. Thanks to these setbacks, I was able to deliver a Ted Talk, so I don’t really see them as failures, but rather as opportunities.

I am an Outlier because my story starts at Tec and ends up changing the world..