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UPCOMING EPD & OTHER EVENTS

(Virtual) Lunch with Professor Series: Jose Antonio Ocampo
Tuesday, October 6, 2020 | 1:00 - 1:45 PM
Click HERE to register. Zoom link

This is a golden opportunity for all students to get to know our Professors at SIPA particularly in the EPD concentration! Learn about their background and career and ask them any questions you have!

José Antonio Ocampo is a Co-director of the EPD Concentration in the School of International and Public Affairs, Member of the Committee on Global Thought and co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. He is also the Chair of the Committee for Development Policy, an expert committee of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In 2012–2013 he chaired the panel created by the IMF Board to review the activities of the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office; in 2008–2010, he served as co-director of the UNDP/OAS Project on “Agenda for a Citizens’ Democracy in Latin America”; and in 2009 a Member of the Commission of Experts of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System. Prior to his appointment, Ocampo served in a number of positions in the United Nations and the Government of Colombia, most notably as United Nations Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs; Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Chairman of the Board of Banco del República (Central Bank of Colombia); Director of the National Planning Department (Minister of Planning); Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Executive Director of FEDESARROLLO.


Conversation with Ayisha Irfan | Friday, October 9, 2020 | 1:00 - 2:00 PM | Zoom 

Join the SIPA Muslim Commons (SMC) for a Conversation with Ayisha Irfan, Public Policy Manager at Airbnb. Learn about how Airbnb has managed the COVID-19 crisis and how it is like to be a woman of color at the intersection of tech + policy. 

 Zoom Link


 

 

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RECORDING/SLIDES FROM PAST EVENTS

The Challenges of Financing the Sustainable Development Goals
Speaker: Navid Hanif, Director, Financing for Sustainable Development Office, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)
Thursday, October 1, 2020 | 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

If you were not able to attend this event but would've love to, we got you covered! HERE is the recording to the event and HERE is the slides!

 

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OCS EMPLOYER SESSIONS

Institute for Defense Analyses | Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020 | 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Zoom
The presentation will describe career opportunities at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a non-profit corporation supporting the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies with multi-disciplinary research. IDA assists the United States Government in addressing important national security issues, particularly those requiring scientific and technical expertise. Full-time positions as Research Staff Members and Research Associates are available to qualified candidates with Masters and Doctoral degrees in a variety of disciplines including physical and life sciences, social sciences, engineering, and international affairs. IDA also runs a Summer Associate program for graduate students.


Catholic Relief Services International Development Fellows Program | Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2020 | 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM | Zoom
CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES  Seeks diverse and aligned candidates, and welcome people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.

 

The Alfa Fellowship Program | Thursday, October 7, 2020 | 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Zoom
Gain competitive skills for the global workplace plus experience the business, policy and cultural environments of Russia and the region. This unparalleled opportunity has enabled over 200 young professionals from the U.S., U.K., and Germany to elevate their careers since 2004. Fully funded, the program includes language training, seminars, and an extended professional assignment. Fellows receive a monthly stipend, program related-travel costs, accommodation, and insurance. Russian language proficiency is preferred but not required. The application deadline is December 1. For more information, please visit: culturalvistas.org/alfa


Careers in Sustainable Investing with SIPA Alum Sharadiya Dasgupta ’17, Founding Partner, ESG Value | Thursday, October 7, 2020 | 1:00 PM- 2:00 PM
Join SIPA alum Sharadiya Dasgupta ’17, Founding Partner, ESG Value, for a discussion on careers in sustainable investing. Sharadiya will cover her time at SIPA and path to her current role, provide an overview of the current landscape, identify potential entry points for SIPA profiles and offer advice on networking into and standing out as a compelling candidate in the field.


Synpulse Happy Hour | Thursday, October 8, 2020 | 6:00 PM- 8:00 PM
Join us for our annual Recruiting Happy Hour, this year we’ll be hosting it virtually. Learn more about our global consulting practice from our Synpulse team - this is an opportunity to engage with our firm in a more relaxed way, prior to the formal interview process. Ask our consultants about their project experiences and learn more about what Synpulse can offer you as a new joiner! Join us for an evening of networking over virtual happy hour!


White House Fellow Program | Tuesday, October 6, 2020 | 1:00 PM- 2:00 PM | Zoom | Work Authorization Requirement: US Citizens
White House Fellowships are awarded annually to a select group of promising leaders. Fellows - usually from 12 to 15 in number - spend a year in Washington working in a paid, consequential position in the White House or in the office of a senior leader in a federal department or agency.  The program is non-partisan, and applications are accepted from American citizens who are not currently employed in the federal government (with the exception of those in military service). In addition to their work assignments, Fellows participate in a robust education program featuring closed door meetings with members of Congress, the Administration and the diplomatic corps as well as visiting CEOs, senior military officials and influential members of the media. A typical Fellowship year also includes three domestic policy trips and an overseas trip to investigate policy issues and political dynamics. Among the fields represented in recent Fellows classes are business, law, education, journalism, medicine, public health and public policy.  White House Fellowships are an incredible opportunity to contribute to the work of the federal government at an unusually high level and also broaden and deepen your appreciation of the interaction between Washington and your chosen professional field. Please RSVP to attend at this link:  White House Fellows Information Session - Register Here
 

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JOBS, INTERNSHIPS AND OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

Check out this week's OCS New Job and Internship Opportunities CLICK HERE and Upcoming Deadlines for Jobs and Internship Application CLICK HERE

This weeks's new opportunities include organizations such as The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Wikimedia Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Institute for Women's Policy Research, Google, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and more. 

While deadlines are approaching for various opportunities with organizations such as Asian Development Bank, Carbon Trust, Human Rights Watch, Centre for Global Development, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, U.S Global Leadership Foundation, Eurasia Group, and more. 

The D-Prize Global Competition 
D-Prize challenges bold new leaders to tackle distribution problems impeding development in countries where extreme poverty exists. We award teams with grants of up to $20,000 to launch new organizations, solve distribution bottlenecks, and change millions of lives. Many of the 160+ winning teams have been students eager to make a massive positive impact on the world. You don’t have to think of yourself as an entrepreneur to apply to D-Prize. We fund problem solvers who are at the idea stage. Students passionate about social entrepreneurship, global health, education, agriculture, renewable energy, poverty alleviation, or last mile distribution can learn more about D-Prize, the Global Competition, and the application at d-prize.org. Application deadline: October 18, 2020. 
 

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CAREER RESOURCES

EPD Recruitment Orientation (Session's Recording and Slides)
If you missed the EPD Recruitment Orientation Session organized by the Office of Career Service (OCS) on Monday 9/14, we got you covered! CLICK HERE to access the presentation slides, and CLICK HERE to watch the recording of the event.

SIPA Career Website & Resources
Check out great career development resources for students that can be found on SIPA Career Resources Website.

Factsheets on Career Development - Tips for international students and on connecting with alumni, interviewing, networking, PMF information, writing resumes and cover letters and other career development topics.

Career Overview Factsheet - Information, sample employers, and online resources for a variety of fields and industries

Sector-Specific Fact Sheets - Lists of employers by industry or field, organizational charts, and information on IFC and World Bank internship programs and YPPs.

Check out other resources in the website to get access to general career fact sheets, career overviews, PMF information, lists of employers by sector, tips for international students, and sample resumes and cover letters, as well as online databases, paid subscriptions, and the OCS Weekly News e-newsletter.
 

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FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: CAMILLA NESTOR (Adjunct Assoc. Prof., SIPA; Vice President of Microfinance at the Grameen Foundation)
Can you tell us about the course you plan to teach in the spring?

I’m looking forward to teaching Financial Inclusion: Models and Products to Enhance Financial Access for the Poor, which I co-teach with Louise Moretto in the spring semester. The course is designed to give students an overview of the rapidly evolving financial inclusion sector, covering the ecosystem and policy landscape; types of products and services being offered; and client-level impact. We also take a critical look at some of the newest approaches to driving financial inclusion – for example, fintech models – and evaluate both the successes and challenges with these tools, especially from the perspective of ensuring poor households have access to a range of appropriate, affordable financial services. One of the aspects of the course I enjoy most is the blog writing competition, in which students write an article on a financial inclusion topic of their choosing. The winning blog is published on a leading industry website. The articles are always inspiring, interesting and often bring a completely fresh perspective – making it very difficult to select the winner! To help, we use outside experts who select the finalist from a shortlist. Last year’s winning blog was published here. Louise and I originally designed this course six years ago when I was on sabbatical from Grameen Foundation and revise it each year for the latest developments, learnings, and impact results.

Can you share any research or work you're involved in right now? 

One area I’m focusing on at the moment is looking at how impact investors (particularly financial inclusion-focused investors) have responded to their portfolio companies in light of the pandemic. We are seeing a range of approaches, some more focused on the risk, with others more focused on the opportunity to expand financial services to the underserved, leveraging the digital channels we are all so dependent on these days.

Are there any fun facts or other information you'd like to share with students?

One of the many things I miss about travel right now is the opportunity to sample new and interesting foods. After living in Indonesia for 4 years after I graduated from SIPA (many moons ago), my go-to comfort food is still laksa. My quarantine attempts to replicate some of my favorite dishes yielded mixed results and a renewed appreciation for good cooks!

 

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHTS

Andrew Carmona is a second-year dual citizen of the United States and the Dominican Republic. He was born and raised in New York where he attended New York University for his undergraduate studies. He graduated with a focus in psychology and medicine but then changed his career track to international affairs. Before SIPA, Andrew worked for organizations like the American Red cross, the International Rescue Committee, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). His two most memorable assignments were living in Puerto Rico in response to the Hurricane Maria disaster and surviving the second-largest storm to make landfall on the US, Typhoon Yutu, during his deployment to the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianna Islands. Andrew is currently a second-year student at SIPA with an EPD concentration and Latin American/TMaC specializations. As a first-year student he was part of the China Delegation where he spent 2 weeks meeting with Chinese government officials and visited top companies. Additionally, he completed his capstone project with WeRobotics and over the summer continued working with WeRobotics to develop a government engagement strategy for the organization’s 29 international offices.
 

Kelsey Ray is a first-year MIA student with an EPD concentration and Management specialization. She grew up in Houston, TX and received her Bachelors in Economics from Texas A&M University. After graduating, she lived and worked in Switzerland, Rwanda, and Belgium before landing back state-side in Boston. For the last four years, Kelsey has been working on a nation-wide small business education program in the US, designed to help entrepreneurs grow and create economic opportunity in their local communities. At SIPA, she hopes to learn more about how NGOs, governments, and private companies can work together to support entrepreneurs in solving the key challenges that face their communities. Outside of school and work, Kelsey likes hiking, cooking, traveling (she’s working on a 30-countries-before-30 goal), horror movies, and exploring local breweries and restaurants.
 

(Reach out to us if you'd like to be featured in the next newsletter!)

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PICK OF THE WEEK

This week's featured movie: A Call To Spy 
Inspired by true stories of Vera Atkins, Virginia Hall, and Noor Inayat Khan, the first female field agents of the British Special Operation Executive (SOE), a secret British World War II organisation formed to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, and to aid local resistance movements. In the beginning of WWII, Churchill orders his new spy agency, the SOE, to recruit and train women as spies to onduct sabotage and build a resistance. SOE's "spymistress," Vera Atkins, recruits two unusual candidates: Virginia Hall, an ambitious American with a wooden leg, and Noor Inayat Khan, a Muslim pacifist. Together, these women help to undermine the Nazi regime in France, leaving an unmistakable legacy in their wake.

Watch the trailer HERE, Rent the movie HERE. 

This week's featured book: Billion Dollar Whale

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios). Now a #1 international bestseller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history. In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude--one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund--right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the U.S. Department of Justice continued its investigation.

Available on Amazon

(We would love to hear your recommendations! Let us know what you have watched/read/listened to recently so we can feature them in the next newsletter!)

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EPD OFFICE HOURS

José Antonio Ocampo, EPD Co-Director
Sign up online: https://tinyurl.com/officehours-ocampo

Jenny McGill, EPD Co-Director and Workshop Director
Sign up online: https://tinyurl.com/mcgill-oh

Ilona Vinklerova, EPD Manager
Sign up online: https://sipa.campusgroups.com/meetings/1060915/IlonaOfficeHours
Wednesday OH are held at SIPA. 

Séléna Batchily, EPD Program Assistant
By appointment at ssb2200@columbia.edu

Saiful Salihudin, EPD Program Assistant
By appointment at sas2409@columbia.edu