2. 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
3. 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
4. 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.
6. 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
7. Radar Chart: Comparing Peru,
Brazil, and Colombia’s Science
Ecosystems, 2015-2016
Source: Data from Global Competitiveness Report,
2016-2017, World Economic Forum; chart is my own
9. 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
