Alumnus’ Story Todo porvenir fue un hoy que se atrevió Fernando at the World Bank Group headquarters in Washington, D.C., USA. Fernando during a mission in Kenya. Fernando meeting Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister, H.E. Xanana Gusmão in Dili. A Last-Minute U-Turn At secondary school, Fernando thrived in STEM. He took Mathematics, Advanced Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, and he enjoyed the logical rigour of each. “I never planned to study GCS, and it turned out to be the best decision I ever made,” he says. “I was set on the hard sciences, but something felt missing. At the last minute I made a massive U-turn, and GCS appeared right when I needed it.” Unlike traditional Chinese or East Asian studies degrees, GCS takes a global perspective, and its flexible electives let students design their own path. The switch wasn’t easy. Friends and relatives wondered whether he could keep up. Fernando treated it as an experiment, and within a few months he had found his rhythm. “Every GCS student builds their own curriculum,” he says. “It gave me the intellectual freedom to explore, the scaffolding to grow and the support to give my very best. Through the range of courses, the faculty and a forwardthinking, can-do attitude, I discovered public policy. That was the answer I had been looking for: how to turn everything GCS had given me into a tool for change.” Fernando García ALBERO (GCS Class of 2020) Fernando García Albero is one of 31 people selected this year by the World Bank Group for its Young Professionals Program, from around 30,000 applicants worldwide. Six years ago, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Global China Studies (GCS). Originally from Spain, he has since worked with governments in more than 15 low- and middle-income countries across Africa and Asia, helping them deliver reforms in technology, health and economic development. As he puts it, his mission is to “help governments deliver impact at scale.” At the Clinton Health Access Initiative, he led digital innovation strategy in over 10 countries, helping health ministries bring proven innovations into national health programs so that more people could get quality, affordable healthcare. At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, he advised heads of government and senior leaders on their most pressing development challenges, and helped set up delivery units in Prime Ministers’ Offices that now drive flagship national reform programs. Fernando on a field visit to Lhasa with his colleague. Today, at the World Bank Group, he is applying that experience to a broader question: how can digital tools help governments deliver better services to the people who depend on them? 4
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