Maria Mercedes Sidders (US-Canada 2021)
Maria Mercedes Sidders (30) is pursuing concurrent degrees: a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard and an MBA from MIT. She says the former teaches her how to analyze problems and the latter, how to build a solution. She expects to graduate in 2022.
Children’s well-being is at the heart of each of Mercedes’ initiatives. She has worked and volunteered in the public and private sector, at home and overseas, including Argentina’s Planning and Innovation Department in the Ministry of Education, the non-profit Centre of Research and Social Action, Boston Consulting Group in South Africa, and she will be interning in UNICEF Impact Fund this summer. As part of the central team assisting President Macri and the Chief of Staff of Argentina, she helped increase opportunities for economically disadvantaged children
In each position, she has gained expertise and developed contacts, methodically advancing toward her goal of improving the fate and amplifying the voices of Argentina’s children.
Mercedes founded an NGO, “Abrazar”, to implement her thesis project, a machine-learning tool to identify children at risk of domestic violence. She leads a diverse team of students from Harvard, and her alma mater in Argentina, collaborating closely with psychologists, lawyers, public officials and politicians, and hopes to scale the project up from her home town to Buenos Aires and eventually across the country.
After her studies, Mercedes plans to return to Argentina to work with the government, which she sees as holding the power to protect and promote children’s welfare. Her referees praise her intellect, her managerial and interpersonal skills, her drive, and her compassion.
She says “The fact that every one of two children [in Argentina] live in poverty has been neglected. I would like to bring this issue into focus and drive change, exerting all of my effort and technical skills.”
