Read about Pilar Lagos

What brought you to a career in technology at the United Nations?

In 2018, I joined the UN to project manage the design and web development of a Drupal multisite to host 132 UN country team websites globally. I worked with a wonderful team of three web editors to provide hands-on support to UN country teams. This included content migration, content curation and trainings. I’m happy to report that after almost 5 years, the team and I delivered 132 websites, 33 of these websites in a non- official UN language. It was definitely the dream team!

What has been your favorite IT project at the United Nations and what was your technical contribution?

My favorite IT project was connecting the Drupal 9 multi-site with the various data platforms developed by DCO. It was exciting to see data stored in other systems appear in these public information websites. My contribution was to serve as the project manager, firstly to ensure seamless communication between the different developers to deliver on the scope of work and secondly to make sure that the data points being pulled via API made sense from a public information standpoint.

What advice would you give women interested in pursuing a field in technology?

My advice to women interested in technology is to surround yourself with mentors that see your potential and encourage you to pursue tech, even if it seems scary. I got into project management (PM) because a mentor discovered me. She believed in me before I took on what would become my dream job.