The Master according to former Alumni
In three years, 75 students from more than 30 countries attended the ICT for Development and Social Good Master. Where did they come from? Which where theirs background? Why did they choose the Master? And, how did the Master helped them?
We asked these questions to former Master alumni and this is the photography that emerged.
Origin and why they chose the Master
Alumni come from the most diverse experiences, from project manager to language teacher, from business analyst to Peace Civil Corp, and entrepreneurs, students, IT analyst and more.
“To learn new skills”, “To enhance the knowledge of ICT’s”, “Curiosity” are the most common reasons why they have chosen to attend the Master.
But there ‘s someone who had more personal motivations. Mauricio Bisol explains that he would like to “develop my Company and provide technology services for NGO’s”. Mihaela Tudorache was “trying to jump into the social sector” and the Master “sounded the perfect fit for me”. And Carmelo Fischetti, entrepreneur in ICT sector, wanted “to spend my technical knowledge and my experience in projects relevant from a Social Good side”.
“The Master offers an interesting range of topics and the fact that such topics are “blended” in a “development” perspective made it very appealing to me – explained Tommaso Mattei, office assistant at FAO –. Also, being mostly online, it was totally compatible with my working schedule”.
What they learned
The increase of competences and perspectives and the opportunity to be part of a network of professionals, experts and colleagues are some of the most important results of the Master, according to former Alumni.
Underling the importance of the network, Carmelo Fischetti explains: “I started to collaborate with a few classmates in a couple of ICT for Social Good projects”.
Than, there some personal stories that show how the skills learned at the Master can help in different situations.
“Thanks to the Master’s degree, I could sign a consultancy contract, which could hopefully lead to a stabler position in FAO, the organization I am currently working for”, tells Tommaso Mattei.
Peter Njiguna, who works in Digital Development area, explains that: “What I’ve learned at the course was a selling point to getting a new job position I currently hold”.
In spite of the pandemic, someone was able to put into practice some skills acquired in the Master, as Dominic Kornu: “The skills I learnt helped me to consult (mostly pro bono) for a couple of SMEs while trying to start a consultancy focused on ICT4D. A couple of months ago I got the opportunity to work on a health project as IT and Communications Officer”.
After the Master, Gregor Giannella had the opportunity to start a new adventure: “I joined an international NGO in Northern Mozambique (Pemba) as Humanitarian response coordinator and project manager in a context that’s quickly evolving into a severe humanitarian crisis. I’ve been using ICTs for monitoring and evaluation on a recurrent basis ever since. So, the master gave me the basis for understanding all the potential uses of ICTs which I can now test on the field to also innovate the NGO’s activities throught the different phases of project life cycle”.