Gabriel Marmentini

Co-founder and Executive Director, Politize!

Gabriel has dedicated his career to strengthening democracy and advancing social justice in Brazil through social entrepreneurship. At just 22, he co-founded two impactful civil society organizations: Politize! – Civic Education Institute and the Brazilian Association for Head and Neck Cancer (ACBG Brasil).

Gabriel earned his undergraduate degree in Public Management from the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC) in 2015, followed by a Master’s in Management in 2018, and a PhD in Management in 2023. From 2021 to 2023, Gabriel taught as an adjunct professor at UDESC, delivering courses on Social Entrepreneurship, Socio-environmental Responsibility Management, and Co-production of the Public Good, contributing to the academic community for two years.

Recognizing the power of networks, Gabriel has engaged in several influential movements and programs, including the Choice Movement, Warriors Without Weapons, Social Good Brasil Lab, Red Bull Amaphiko, the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI), the Facebook Community Leadership Program, One Young World, and the Fundação Lemann Leadership Network. His pioneering work earned him recognition as a young innovator in Forbes Under 30 and as one of the winners of the Empreendedor Social Folha Award, Latin America’s most prestigious social entrepreneurship honor.

Gabriel’s leadership and contributions extend globally, with fellowships and awards from initiatives like MIT Solve, Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review, the Democracy Fellowship Cohort from Keseb, Young Global Changers, and the Global Good Fund’s Leap Cohort.

His work continues to inspire and influence the social entrepreneurship landscape both in Brazil and abroad. Get his vision at his TED Talk: https://bit.ly/ted-talk-gabriel-marmentini.

Politize! has a mission of developing a generation of citizens who are aware of and committed to democracy, bringing political education to anyone, anywhere. As long as Brazil is not a full democracy, Politize’s! work is not over.
Politize! produces free and unbiased content of political education on the internet, trains civic leaders for being capable of solving public problems and trains teachers to educate the youth in the process to become an engaged citizen. Founded in 2015 to fill the gap in political education in Brazil, aiming to strengthen Brazilian democracy, “Politize!” means, in Portuguese, “to politicize.” Reframing the concept of citizenship, Politize! stands out as an organization that knows how to combine theoretical knowledge with practical actions, encouraging its network to assume a leading role in solving complex public problems and to understand that politics is inherent in all our actions and experiences, and it is our responsibility to activate citizenship for the common good.