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One year of BIDAcademy

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5 min. read.

Latin America and the Caribbean are facing a socioeconomic crisis and our clients and counterpart organizations need support from the IDB Group. Beyond our financial capacities, that support requires all of our human capital at the service of the region. Now, more than ever, the actionable knowledge that the Bank generates and shares, as well as the skills that it strengthens, will make a difference for the region in the coming decades.

In 2021 as part of the IDBs Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors in Barranquilla, Colombia, BIDAcademy was officially introduced as the platform that integrates, disseminates and promotes the practical and actionable knowledge generated by the IDB Group. BIDAcademy is built on more than 60 years of the Group’s experience discovering technical and cutting-edge knowledge, and strengthening the capacities of its staff, as well as public officials and citizens working in areas related to development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

BIDAcademy consolidates our purpose of becoming a 21st century organization that evolves and responds efficiently to the development needs of the region in an increasingly digitized era.

Efforts and tangible results

With BIDAcademy we are making significant efforts to listen to the needs of our countries, and to better understand our audiences and their interests. This feedback is essential, and it guides our work in producing, disseminating and increasing access to the knowledge that the Bank generates to ensure it is actionable. We see BIDAcademy as a key instrument and natural complement to the IDB Group’s loan operations, supporting the achievement of its goals and the effectiveness and impact of our work on the region’s development. This collective effort is placed under a single umbrella that is BIDAcademy, aiming to position the IDB as the key reference source for knowledge about development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

With BIDAcademy we are taking our knowledge and learning agenda to the next level:

  1. Including more people and more knowledge and learning products generated by the Bank and by our partners through alliances.
  2. Opening our knowledge and making our content easily accessible, reusable, and free.
  3. Giving greater visibility to knowledge through proactive dissemination in response to the needs and interests of our audiences.

BIDAcademy supports the systematization and dissemination of our publications, courses, data, code, blogs and events.  Here are a few examples of the results BIDAcademy has achieved in its first year:

  • More than 2.5 million pageviews.
  • Launched 182 online courses totaling more than 195,000 registrations.
  • Issued more than 31,000 digital badges.
  • Generated more than 1,300 publications that have been downloaded over 1.2 million times.
  • Published 14 new data sets achieving more than 600 downloads.
  • Shared the source code of 25 programs generating around 2,300 visits.
  • Over 16 million visits to IDB Group blogs related to development topics.
  • The annual Superheroes of Development contest, which allows the lessons learned from development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean to be shared and reflected upon, reached an audience of more than 33,000 users.
  • Established 11 knowledge and learning alliances with universities, public agencies and research centers, in addition to 17 collaborations with other entities to develop and adapt courses. Similarly, the PM4R Program incorporated 7 new education providers, expanding the training capacity for managing development projects.

We don’t stop there when it comes to offering cutting-edge and actionable knowledge!  As part of our goals to maximize the positive impact of this platform, we are preparing the first “BIDAcademy Knowledge Week” to ​​make visible, celebrate, and scale the reach of knowledge for the benefit of internal and external audiences. The event will take place in June in a hybrid format (face-to-face and digital), and will bring together leaders from academia, think tanks, and the public and private sectors. It will also include new voices of change in development discussions and will position youth at the center of the dialogue, fostering scenarios where young people play an active role in planning their future.

More than numbers

Indeed, I am pleased to talk about results and share what we have achieved just one year after implementing a platform as ambitious and complete as BIDAcademy, however, the message that I want to reinforce is an invitation to discover and take advantage of the content and tools that are available. The doors are open! BIDAcademy welcomes all those interested in being part of the development of Latin America and the Caribbean, a rich and promising region.

The paths toward development take different shapes and respond to the different realities and experiences of citizens in the region, and.  BIDAcademy is here to support that journey. You’ve come to the right place, whether it is reading about development methodologies in our publications, accessing source code and adapting it to solve local problems, taking online courses that improve your knowledge on inclusion matters, or analyzing data sets about the labor markets in the region, the possibilities are endless and, best of all, they are constantly updated.

We created it, but BIDAcademy is yours.

By Adela Barrio, Ana Libisch, Viviana Garay y Nicolás Jaramillo, team of BIDAcademy.

 


Adela Barrio

Adela Barrio is a Knowledge and Apprentice Senior Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank. She has worked in the public, private and civil society sectors in Peru, England, the United States and Paraguay. Adela studied Administration in the University of Lima, and holds a master's degree in International Relations and a specialization in International Development from Georgetown University (MSFS).

Ana Libisch

Ana Libisch is a communicator in the Knowledge, Innovation and Communication Sector of the IDB, where she supports the design and implementation of BIDAcademy's communication strategy. Before joining the IDB in 2021, Ana had worked for more than 15 years in both the public and private sectors, as well as in multilateral organizations leading the communication efforts of different institutions such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Technological University of Uruguay and the international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS). Ana holds a degree in Social Communication from the Catholic University of Uruguay, and a master's degree in Media and International Development from the University of East Anglia (UK).

Viviana Garay

Viviana is an economist who has 13 years of experience in the public sector and in multilateral organizations. Her work at the IDB focuses on supporting the achievement of BIDAcademy's goals through the development of strategic knowledge and learning alliances. She works to facilitate and identify potential synergies for the co-production, dissemination, and transfer of knowledge that would allow the Academy to expand its reach and impact. Prior to joining the Knowledge, Innovation and Communication Sector of the IDB, she was Senior Advisor to the Executive Director of the World Bank for the Southern Cone for 4 years. In addition, she was Chief of staff of the Governor of the Central Bank of Paraguay and Economist in the office of the Resident Representative of the IMF, as well as in the Undersecretary of Economy of the Ministry of Finance of Paraguay. Viviana is a Fulbright Scholar and holds two master's degrees, in Public Administration and in Economics from Syracuse University.

Nicolás Jaramillo

Nicolás Jaramillo is a Senior Associate in the Knowledge and Learning Division of the IDB. He has more than 18 years of professional experience conducting organizational consulting for the implementation of strategies, process optimization and project management improvement. Prior to the IDB, Nicolás worked in the infrastructure, food and oil sectors, as a Program Leader and manager of the Project Management Offices (PMO). He was a senior consultant at Deloitte for 7 years carrying out business cases, organizational designs, strategic planning and process management schemes. He has a master's degree in International Business Management from the University of Barcelona, and is an Industrial Engineer from the University of La Sabana. For ten years he has been a professor of Project Management and Creativity and Innovation.

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