Patricia Austria has focused her Yale studies on the intersection of international development and technology, particularly on how to distribute the digital dividends of innovation. Her research included the impact of artificial intelligence on global inequality, agency effects around self-driving cars, and innovation in fragile and humanitarian contexts. In the fall of 2017, Pat traveled to Europe to share her work on digital ecosystems with executives from Google, Cisco and LinkedIn. Through her classwork she has also been given the opportunity work directly with governments on social innovation, including working with the Connecticut Department of Corrections on a prison tablet system and the State Department on online counter-messaging of terrorist propaganda. In the summer between her first and second year at Yale, Pat worked at the UN World Food Program to understand how to enable social protection systems in environments of conflict and fragility. One of Pat’s greatest experiences at Yale remains being a teaching fellow for Emma Sky’s Gateway to Global Affairs course, where she led a weekly discussion section of a class of freshmen and sophomore students around important topics in international affairs. Prior to coming to Yale, Pat worked at the World Bank where she started in their innovation practice at just 18 years old – the youngest member of the team and organization. She continued that work in different capacities before accepting a different role in the bank’s Poverty Reduction Unit and Governance Global Practice. During this time, Pat also served as the director of communications of Global Playground – a nonprofit dedicated to building schools and technology centers in the most underserved parts of the world.