usaid reflection
Post on 17-Jan-2017
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My 300-Hour Experience: USAID Internship
Summer 2016Mary Ziemba
What, When, and Where
• Internship with the US Agency for International Development
• PEER team within the Global Development Lab
• May-July 2016, summer after my sophomore year
• My task: Corroborate PEER's central hypothesis--that scientific research improves countries’ development outcomes--with hard data as opposed to anecdotal evidence
• Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC
My Big Takeaways: Entrepreneurial Skills• Technical skills:
• Assess the needs of my “customer” (in this case, the PEER team, who would be using the data I provide)
• Consider the technology available to my team
• Consider the team’s technical ability (e.g. no coding required to perform statistical analyses)
• Working with a team
• Talk to my “customer”—how do you want to use this? What problem can I solve? (and talk with the team often!)
• Weekly meetings with the team, asking questions over email
• Show my team demos of my progress, see what I can do to make it better
Learning about the social impacts of innovation
• Domestic research promotes innovative solutions to a country’s pain points and can help improve a country’s development outcomes.
• Strong relationship between University-Industry Collaboration in R&D and quality of research institutions, an important development goal.
Sample Charts and Graphs from my Experience
Relationship between University-Industry Collaboration in R&D and Quality of Scientific
Research Institutions: Selected Countries in Latin America and comparison countries
Source: Global Competitiveness Report, 2016-2017, World Economic Forum
Radar Chart: Comparing Peru, Brazil, and Colombia’s Science
Ecosystems, 2015-2016Source: Data from Global Competitiveness Report, 2016-2017, World Economic Forum; chart is my own
http://tinyurl.com/mtz-usaid
See my artifact for a more comprehensive view of my work this summer
In Summary
• Learned collaboration skills, how to receive feedback and implement it
• Consideration of an item’s use, functionality for the user
• Learned about the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation in promoting global development
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