Yoani María Sánchez Cordero is a philologist, digital journalist, and activist. She was born on September 4, 1975, in Havana, Cuba.
Graduated from the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the University of Havana in the year 2000.
After completing his higher education, he had a very brief work connection with Editorial Gente Nueva, which he left to teach Spanish to tourists.
In 2002, he travels to Switzerland. There, in Zurich, he resides until 2004, when he decides to return to the Island and establish his residence there. In that same year, he co-founds the magazine Consenso with other Cubans.
In 2007, she launched her blog Generación Y, which fundamentally serves as a bridge between everyday Cuban reality and the world. With straightforward language, free from ostentation, and a critical perspective, she documents the numerous challenges of daily life in Cuba. From that moment on, her posts began to receive increasing attention, making her a more controversial figure, internationally recognized, yet censored and targeted by the media and mechanisms of official power in Cuba.
She has received, like many other Cuban activists, threats, detentions, house arrest, and has been subjected to harsh interrogations more than once by agents of the Cuban state security.
In May 2014, he founded the digital newspaper 14ymedio.com, which operates from the very apartment where he resides in Cuba.
Both her blog, which merits its approach to a system from within, and the topics she addresses have earned her numerous accolades. Just a year after launching her blog, she received the Ortega y Gasset Award for Digital Journalism (Spain, 2008), and Time Magazine included her in the list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World (United States, 2008).
He has received, among others, the following awards and honors:
The 10 Characters of 2008 (Gatopardo, Mexico, 2008)
100 Most Important Hispano-Americans in 2008 (El País, Spain, 2008)
10 Most Influential Intellectuals in Latin America in 2008 (Foreign Policy, United States, 2008)
The BOBs (Deutsche Welle, Germany, 2008)
Global Young Leaders Award (World Economic Forum, Switzerland, 2009)
25 Best Blogs of 2009 (Time Magazine, 2009)
Hemispheric Heroes Award 2009 (Pan American Development Foundation, United States, 2009)
Young Leaders Award 2009 (International Foundation of Young Leaders, Argentina, 2009)
María Moors Cabot Prize (Columbia University, United States, 2009)
Blog of the Month in December 2009 (The Good Web Guide, United Kingdom, 2009)
World Press Freedom Hero (International Press Institute, United States, 2010)
Freedom Award CEPOS (Danish Center for Independent Research, Denmark, 2010)
International Jaime Brunet Award (Public University of Navarra, Spain, 2010)
The bravest woman on earth (Chosen by readers, 20 minutos, Spain, 2010)
Prince Claus Award for Journalism (Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, Netherlands, 2010)
International Women of Courage Award (U.S. Department of State, 2011)
100 Women with Digital Talent (Wellcommunity, Spain, 2011)
The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers (Foreign Policy, United States, 2011)
150 Fearless Women (The Daily Beast, United States, 2012)
