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Education · Culture · Audiovisual · Music

Mónica Ibáñez Fernández de Lis

Educator · Documentary filmmaker · Cultural manager · Musician

I connect technology, culture, critical thinking and creation to turn knowledge into experiences that transform.

One journey. Different languages. The same way of seeing.

Studio portrait of Mónica Ibáñez Fernández de Lis: a woman with curly blonde hair smiling at the camera, wearing red lipstick, against a dark background

About

A journey that doesn't fit in a single label

I began in photography, as a graphic and written press correspondent, and everything else grows from that way of seeing. For more than four decades I have worked in education, documentary film, cultural management and music. They may look like different paths, but they have always been the same one: to observe, research, understand, narrate, teach, create and accompany processes of transformation.

As an educator and mentor, I help companies, professionals and the wider public adopt artificial intelligence and digital tools with good judgement, without losing sight of the people. In the audiovisual field I have worked in directing, production, filmmaking and screenwriting, specialising in documentary, with projects broadcast on national and international television. As a cultural manager, I have created and directed festivals, showcases and forums. And as a musician — Mona, on stage — I research the story living inside each song and bring it to the stage.

Everything I do springs from the same conviction: knowledge transforms when it becomes shared experience.

How I can help

Different ways of working together

I work with companies, training centres, public administrations, universities, cultural organisations and social projects through different forms of collaboration: training, talks, strategic mentoring and project development.

Training and capacity building

Courses, programmes and workshops — in person, online or hybrid — adapted to each organisation and starting level.

  • Applied artificial intelligence
  • Digital transformation and data culture
  • Automation and process improvement
  • Security, privacy and digital skills
  • Media literacy and train-the-trainer programmes
  • Environmental education: workshops for children and young people on caring for, observing and discovering their environment
Request a training proposal

Mentoring for companies

Practical, understandable support for SMEs, teams and organisations that want to adopt AI and digital tools. Not a one-off course, nor distant consultancy: a process adapted to the reality of each organisation.

  • Needs assessment and process analysis
  • Selection and prioritisation of use cases
  • Roadmap and responsible choice of tools
  • Team training and internal protocols
  • Follow-up on goals and results
Ask about mentoring

Cultural and audiovisual projects

Design, direction, production, programming, screenwriting and mediation of cultural, educational, documentary and audiovisual projects.

  • Audiovisual direction, production and filmmaking (documentary specialisation)
  • Festivals, showcases and forums
  • Cultural programming and mediation
  • Screenwriting and project development
Develop a project

Music and Conciertos Ilustrados

Performance, musical research, dramaturgy and stage productions where every song is presented with its story and its context.

  • Conciertos Ilustrados (Illustrated Concerts) with Mike & Mona
  • Musical research and dramaturgy
  • Proposals for theatres, festivals and institutions
Discover Mike & Mona ↗

Talks, lectures and public conversations

Spaces to think together

Talks for conferences, professional gatherings, universities, companies, cultural institutions and social organisations. These are not extended training courses: they are spaces for reflection, outreach and public conversation.

  • Artificial intelligence and critical thinking
  • Meaningful digital transformation
  • Risks and responsible uses of AI
  • Media literacy and disinformation
  • Technology, power, culture and citizenship
  • Inclusion and representation in the digital age
  • Creativity, education and culture
  • Documentary, memory and social transformation
  • Popular song as a historical document

Recent engagement: invited speaker at the International Intercultural Congress — “Interculturality, AI and Shared Futures” (Valencia, June 2026), at the invitation of SIETAR Valencia. Every talk is adapted to the organisation, the audience, the length and the context.

Propose a talk

Experience

The experience behind the work

More than four decadesof professional experience, from photography to artificial intelligence
Teaching and mentoringin-person and online training for SMEs, professionals, teams and the wider public; design of contents and materials, and workshops for different topics and ages
Cultural and audiovisual projectsdirection, production and filmmaking of documentaries and series; management and content design for festivals, seminars and forums; gatherings and cultural mediation
Spain and beyondprojects, broadcasts and festivals in Spain and internationally

A selection of projects from the fields that represent the way I work:

Teaching & mentoring · Digital transformation & AI

AI training and mentoring for SMEs and professionals

Digital transformation, applied artificial intelligence, business intelligence and digital-tools training: programmes for SMEs, professionals and the general public, covering AI, data culture, process automation, digital security and technological skills. Delivered through public and private training organisations nationwide, within projects such as the Generación D programme, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU and the Government of Spain (Ministry of Industry and Tourism), under the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, through the EOI Industrial Organisation School.

Audiovisual · Documentary

Documentaries, series and advertising campaigns

Direction, production, filmmaking and screenwriting, specialising in documentary: films broadcast on TVE’s La 2 —La Noche Temática— and ARTE, as well as Canal+ and regional broadcasters, including the series Acentos–Accents (eleven episodes), aired on Punt 2, Valencian public television, with international distribution. I have also produced advertising campaigns and worked as production manager for film and documentary.

Cultural management · Festivals

Film festivals and showcases

Director of the documentary film showcases Documenta-me and Indocumenta-2 (2nd and 3rd editions, Madrid, 2006 and 2007) and co-coordinator of the ECOZINE film and environment festival in the Valencia region (2019-2025), with training activities in several municipalities and projects such as the Citizen Environmental Observatory (OCA) in L’Eliana, training secondary-school students as environmental observers.

Cultural management · Forums & institutions

Forums, gatherings and institutional management

Production manager of Ciber@rt — 3rd International Exhibition of New Technologies: Art and Communication (Valencia, 1997); director and content developer of the seminar “Haciendo Latir la Tierra” (CERAI – University of Valencia, 2008) and of the forum “From Individual Change to Global Change: From Me, For You, For All” (CERAI – University of Valencia, 2009); and cultural manager of Geldo’s Cultural Capital 2023.

Education · Critical thinking & inclusion

Critical thinking, audiovisual and inclusion in the classroom

Courses on critical thinking for active learning (CEFIRE, the teacher-training network of the Valencia region); film production and audiovisual-language courses for different institutions; and design of the reference teaching materials and delivery of the workshops “Anti-racist practices in the digital age”, promoted by ISCOD in collaboration with the University of Valencia, Jaume I University (Castellón), Miguel Hernández University (Elche) and the Castellón CEFIRE.

Music · Stage

Mike & Mona – Conciertos Ilustrados

A stage proposal where music and storytelling intertwine, and every show is presented with its story and its context.

Approach

Technology with judgement. Culture with memory. Learning with meaning.

Critical thinking

Analyse before adopting. Assess the risks, limits and responsible uses of every tool — especially artificial intelligence.

Practical application

Real use cases, applicable to each organisation’s context. Knowledge is useful when it can be used.

Inclusive learning

Accessible design that embraces human diversity and respects each person’s pace and starting point.

Social and cultural responsibility

Sustainability, media literacy and an intersectional perspective as a concrete way of designing and developing projects.

Inclusion and accessibility are not decorative statements: they are decisions that shape how a course is designed, how a festival is programmed and how a story is told.

Music

I am also Mona

“Music is not a side activity in my career. It is another of the languages through which I research, perform and share memory. Together with Mike I develop Conciertos Ilustrados — Illustrated Concerts — where every song is presented with its story, its context and the lives that ran through it.”
Discover Mike & Mona ↗
Artistic portrait of Mónica as Mona: close-up with loose curly hair, red lips and an intense gaze, against a dark background

Contact

Tell me what you need

Location Valencia, Spain
Availability In-person and online projects · National and international collaborations
Your message has been sent. Thank you for writing — I will reply as soon as possible.

If you have in mind a training programme, a talk, a mentoring process, a cultural or audiovisual project — or a mixture of several — write to me and we will find the right shape for it.

Or, if you prefer:

Open my email app

Surrealist black-and-white portrait of Mónica: with a playful expression, she bites a high-heeled shoe while holding a studio lamp above her head

Thank you

None of this is done alone

Thank you to all the people and institutions who have accompanied me on this life journey, and to those who will keep doing so. Among them, the ECOZINE festival; the Ciber@rt International Exhibition; the associations ARACOVA, CERAI and ISCOD; SIETAR Valencia; the town councils of Geldo and L’Eliana; the universities Jaume I (Castellón), the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and the University of Valencia (UV); and EBC Comunitat Valenciana.

And thank you, above all, to my family, my friends, and every person who placed their trust in these projects… and to Divine Providence, who has also done her part. The full list would be endless: if you have been part of this path, these thanks are also for you.

Photographs: Elena Díez, photographer ↗
A website created by three hands. In the words of ChatGPT (OpenAI): “Mónica brought the life, Claude (Anthropic) built the house, and ChatGPT helped find the thread that connected the rooms.”