ABOUT ME

I consider myself an international development professional. It may be premature, considering I have not yet begun to work in development, in fact, it is at this very moment that I search for my first proper position within the field. On the other hand, I have dedicated five years to studying the subject.

I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, where I double majored in Business Administration and Development Studies. I spent the following year working at Google as a financial analyst. Most recently, I completed a Masters degree in Development Management from the London School of Economics.

This blog will be a compilation of my thoughts on development issues, personal interests, and a way of updating friends and family on where I am and what I am doing at any particular moment. I decided to use a blog to house my commentary because it 1) fits my lifestyle as a potential nomad who can utilize the one platform that knows no geographic boundaries – the internet and 2) I feel its about time, as it is my claim that I know technology and wish to work it into my development efforts.

It is no accident that the following development-related entries are alphabetically organized. My decision to order my blog in this manner is a play on international development and its relation to child development. For someone who has spent time learning about the history of ‘Development’, it is obvious that the link between a child learning his or her ABCs, and the trajectory of a country in the Global South establishing its economic, social and political freedoms, is part of an old, perhaps even laughably so – to scholars, development rhetoric. Of course, what is even more certain to development scholars and practitioners is that this rhetoric has been manipulated in so many ways that however hidden its new exterior may make the arguments seem, development theories almost always encompass an element of the ‘learning ladder’.