Colombia’s Technology Minister Swears In Two Vice Ministers and a Secretary General

New MinTIC deputies inherit a 20-point urban-rural internet gap

Colombia’s technology minister, Alexandra Falla Zerrate, swore in three senior officials on August 13, 2026, giving the Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies), or MinTIC, a full leadership bench six days after President Abelardo De la Espriella took office.

MinTIC reported in May 2026 that rural household internet access had reached 56.9%, passing half for the first time, and that the gain had left the urban-rural gap at around 20 percentage points. The ministry presented those figures to a team of economists from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a session led by then Vice Minister of Connectivity Gloria Patricia Perdomo — the post one of the new appointees now takes over.

That post goes to Camilo Carrascal Vergel, an electronics engineer. Germán Enrique Bacca Medina takes the Vice Ministry of Digital Transformation, and Magda Yolima Amaya Arévalo becomes secretary general, according to the ministry, which supplied the biographical details that follow.

Carrascal Vergel brings more than 20 years across connectivity, regulation, infrastructure, digital inclusion, digital television, information security, data and innovation, and has worked in the public sector on initiatives to widen digital infrastructure and access to communications services in Colombia. Bacca Medina is a lawyer specializing in financial and securities law, with postgraduate study in communications law and in competition and competition economics, and has held posts at the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (Superintendency of Industry and Commerce) and the Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones (Communications Regulation Commission), alongside work in the private sector and in academia.

Amaya Arévalo takes the Secretariat General. She is a lawyer with a specialization in administrative law and a master’s degree in public management. She has more than 15 years of experience in public management and the handling of public funds. She previously served at the Agencia Nacional del Espectro (National Spectrum Agency) as deputy director for institutional support, with responsibility for administrative and financial processes and for authorizing expenditure.

Amaya Arévalo resigned three days into the job. President De la Espriella publicly instructed Falla on August 15 to review the ministry’s recent appointments and verify appointees’ backgrounds; a ministry document accepting Amaya Arévalo’s resignation effective that date was reported by La República. Semana reported that the appointment had come under scrutiny after it emerged that Amaya Arévalo had worked at the Fondo de Financiamiento de la Infraestructura Educativa (Fund for Financing Educational Infrastructure), or FFIE, an entity tied to the Ministry of Education under the previous government of Gustavo Petro. MinTIC’s organizational chart lists Germán Enrique Bacca Medina, the vice minister of digital transformation, as acting secretary general.

The mandate

MinTIC has named connectivity, artificial intelligence, innovation and the strengthening of public media as the four axes of its agenda, describing them as a technological transformation meant to generate social and economic development, lift productivity and reduce the country’s digital divides.

Those sit inside a longer set of objectives De la Espriella set for the portfolio: a digital sovereignty strategy built on national technological capacity, continued expansion of connectivity into rural and remote areas, and adoption of artificial intelligence to raise productivity and competitiveness. The remainder cover more interoperable state digital services, digital skills training, a secure and resilient digital ecosystem, and a strengthened public media and audiovisual sector.

In his inaugural address, the president said Colombia must join the Fourth Industrial Revolution and pledged to train children and young people in artificial intelligence, programming, data science and robotics:

I do not want, dear compatriots, for our young people to be simple consumers of technology created in other latitudes. I want them to be innovative creators and protagonists of the digital world.

The new minister

Falla has held posts at TransMilenio, as deputy manager for communications and user services, and between 2012 and 2015, she was a member of the Autoridad Nacional de Televisión (National Television Authority), where she led the rollout of digital terrestrial television and took part in decisions on television concessions and broadcast spectrum. From 2015, she directed the Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano (Colombian Film Heritage Foundation), and in 2024 she became the first woman to head the Asociación de las Televisiones Educativas y Culturales Iberoamericanas, the association of Ibero-American educational and cultural television networks.

The swearing-in came three days after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake centered on San José del Palmar, in Chocó, struck Colombia on August 10, after which De la Espriella declared an economic emergency to speed reconstruction.

Headline photo: Colombia’s technology minister, Alexandra Falla Zerrate, with the ministry’s two new vice ministers and its new secretary general at their swearing-in, August 13, 2026. From left: Camilo Carrascal Vergel, vice minister of connectivity; the minister; Magda Yolima Amaya Arévalo, secretary general; and Germán Enrique Bacca Medina, vice minister of digital transformation. (Photo courtesy MinTIC)