Intro to Vice Chair Madeleine

Hello delegates!

My name is Madeleine and I'm a junior at UC Berkeley studying Political Economy with a concentration in urban development and globalization. This my sixth year of doing MUN. If you are going to/went to SCVMUN 2019, I am/was the head chair of the World Bank. As a bay area native, I fondly remember attending BMUN as a delegate in ILO so it's especially awesome to help chair this committee! Additionally, I have some professional experience in the topics at hand as in college I have had the opportunity to work for a think-tank doing research in USA jobs numbers.

This past fall, I studied abroad in Spain and the EU. Um. I like painting. I have a pet dog. That's about all there is to me worth knowing, but I look forward to meeting you all and learning about you in committee!

Madeleine Valdez
mvaldez@bmun.org

(Please remember to wear appropriate business formal attire to committee.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Topic A: Shortage of Unskilled Workers in USA

In 2019, we live in a world, where not automatically heading to a two-year or four year university is seen as out of the norm.  In the US, there is a strong push for an increase in skilled-labor, leaving many “blue-collar” jobs, many times associated with low skill input,becoming more and more vacant.  The article lists agribusiness, traditional manufacturing, and construction as professions with an increasing demand, yet less and less viable applicants. Because so many of these “blue-collar” jobs are essential parts of maintaining the interdependence of the US economy, many of these industries are turning to automation and other forms of technology to deal with the lack of workers.  However, these businesses do not necessarily have the funds to support and develop the technologies needed to maintain their profits. Companies are also considering relocating due to the lack of “unskilled workers” in a particular area, potentially giving a devastating blow to the local...
Read more

Topic A: Automation in Latin America

Hi all, Hope you're excited for BMUN LXVII!! For the first topic, there are countries and regions that stand out as obvious candidates for development through automation; more wealthy countries. However, I hope that the topic synopsis illustrates that these certainly won't be the only countries affected. One region that will be affected much more than it might appear on the surface is Latin America. One shocking statistic is that a higher proportion of workers in some Latin American countries are actually susceptible to replacement by automation than workers in the United States. Some Latin American countries, like European countries and the United States, have been experiencing stagnant productivity growth and seen populations aging, making them some of the most likely to develop and benefit through automation- if the right systems are in place. I'll leave a link to a great article about this at the bottom of the post. What I really love about this article is that ...
Read more

Topic B: Alternative Finance for Small Businesses in Conflict Zones

Image
Alternative finance refers to forms of finance that differ from the traditional system, particularly regulated banks and capital markets. While there are many different forms of alternative finance, when considering issues of conflict zones, I would like to focus on microfinance. Microfinance, according to Google, is another term for "microcredit" which in turn is defined as " the lending of small amounts of money at low interest to new businesses in the developing world". While assuredly it can be used to introduce technology and vice-versa (Topic A), there is the question of whether or not such forms of financial support can be used to help develop small businesses and grow jobs in conflict affected areas of the world (Topic B). The World Bank (see "Helpful Links" below) is a strong believer that "solid financial infrastructure for small-scale lending can help people weather a crisis or, in other words, support their economic resilience." ...
Read more