Margarita Quihuis

A behavior designer, social entrepreneur and mentor capitalist, Margarita Quihuis now serves as the Executive Director of the Peace Innovation Lab (PIL) at Stanford and the Peace Innovation Institute in the city of The Hague. Ms. Quihuis formerly served as the first Director of Astia—a technology incubator for women entrepreneurs where her portfolio companies raised $67 million in venture funding. At PIL, Quihuis’ research focuses on how entrepreneurs can leverage innovation, mass collaboration, persuasive technology, and social networks to change society for the better. Her projects have included the study of collaboration and citizen engagement to foster government innovation – Manor Labs; bottoms-up, post-disaster response and recovery – Relief 2.0; and advisory roles in citizen psychological operations efforts and social media campaigns. A recognized thought leader and public speaker in the areas of innovation, technology, access to capital and entrepreneurship, and emergent social behavior, Ms. Quihuis has advised, mentored, and addressed numerous start-ups, corporations, and academic institutions on the power of persuasive technology.

Ms. Quihuis divides her time between academia and corporate engagements. At PIL and part of the research team at BJ Fogg’s Behavior Design Lab (formerly known as the Persuasive Technology Lab), she translates research around behavioral change, game design, persuasive technology and neuroscience into practical methods to create tangible, real-world impact on areas ranging from climate change to product adoption, public health to cultural transformation, humanitarian relief to citizen diplomacy, and even customer experience.

Ms. Quihuis’ honors include being named one of Women’s eNews “21 Leaders for the 21st Century.” She was named “One of the 100 Most Influential Latinos in Silicon Valley” by Latino Leaders Magazine and received their Maestro Award.