At the World Bank, Alumna Yolanda Martinez Helps Improve Digital Infrastructure in Latin America, Caribbean

By Emma Folts

From a young age, Heinz College alumna Yolanda Martinez has felt drawn to work that improves people’s lives. “I found working in the public sector to be a way to contribute to making this world more fair for everyone,” said Martinez, who graduated in 2006 from the college’s Master of Public Policy and Management (MSPPM) program.

Today, Martinez is the World Bank’s practice manager for digital development in Latin America and the Caribbean. She manages projects that help the regions’ governments improve their digital infrastructure, with the World Bank financing the efforts. By ensuring the countries have better access to the Internet and digital services, the projects aim to create jobs, foster entrepreneurship and enhance residents’ quality of life.

Martinez and her team support projects that help countries move government and financial services online, allowing residents and institutions to more easily make transactions, secure investments and open businesses. The World Bank also prioritizes projects that help countries introduce services enabled by artificial intelligence, Martinez said.

“The more digitized an economy is, the more data is available that can completely accelerate the process of decision-making and government efficiency,” Martinez said. “AI can widely democratize innovation, but you need to build the infrastructure and institutional capacity for those breakthroughs to happen.”

For example, Martinez and the World Bank partnered with online learning platform Coursera to provide scholarships to the regions’ residents. The participating governments, responsible for administering the scholarships, each needed to submit a proposed Coursera curriculum to the World Bank that would address a policy goal, such as increasing the number of middle schoolers who become STEM majors in college.

“To see the commitment of all the governments in making sure their proposals happen as intended was very rewarding. We had the opportunity to go to the launch of all the programs, but also to the graduations,” she said. “Having the Internet and, in this case, a platform that can democratize access to quality education is what creates impact.”

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The impact of Heinz College

At Heinz College, “you touch the future,” Martinez said. Students are surrounded by peers and professors who are pursuing innovative research and experimenting with new technologies. The exposure to cutting-edge technology helps turn students into more effective policy-makers and leaders, she said.

“There are very few schools where you find the intersection between technology and policy, which is what caught my attention about Heinz College,” she said. “No matter what type of organization I’ve worked for –– global level, national level –– my skillset from Heinz has helped me deliver impact, and that's something I treasure a lot.”

She continued: “Because you are so exposed at Carnegie Mellon to everything related to digital, when you design activities, programs and policies in your career, you are not afraid of pushing for innovation.”

Martinez particularly valued the Heinz College course on cost-benefit analysis. She has frequently drawn on the course’s teachings in her career, noting the importance of making well-informed policy decisions when public funds are involved. She also valued the course on public speaking, which she experienced twice, once as a student and again as a teaching assistant.

Later in her time at Heinz College, Martinez enrolled in an independent study directed by Professor Sylvia Borzutzky, who specializes in international relations and human rights policy. The experience helped Martinez apply her technical skills within a social sciences framework, she said.

Through the Internship Opportunity Fund, Heinz College helped Martinez receive financial support for the internship she earned with the United Nations. Martinez recommends that prospective and current students “really leverage your time at Heinz College.”

“You're getting the opportunity to interact for two years with amazing people who are going to do amazing things over the years. Enjoy being part of a community that is committed to the policy part, but with the technical and data-driven part that is so needed today,” she said.

At the World Bank, Alumna Yolanda Martinez Helps Improve Digital Infrastructure in Latin America, Caribbean

Master of Public Policy and Management

The impact of Heinz College

At the World Bank, Alumna Yolanda Martinez Helps Improve Digital Infrastructure in Latin America, Caribbean

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