The recent Karlspreis Fellow talks about her career after graduation, her fellowship research, and what her time at Hertie taught her.
Elena Bascone graduated from the Master of International Affairs programme in 2020. We caught up with her to find out what she’s been up to since graduation, her recent Charlemagne Prize Academic Fellowship, and what she takes with her from her time at Hertie.
You finished your degree at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. What was that like?
I graduated from Hertie “on paper” as I finished my thesis during the first lockdown in Northern Italy. I had returned to my hometown of Venice after the mid-term exams of my last semester thanks to the planes given to young people studying abroad by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi di Maio. I will be always grateful to him for giving me and other students the chance to stay with my family in that difficult moment.
It’s been four years since you graduated from the Hertie School. Where has your career taken you since then?
After completing my coursework in 2020, I decided to stay in Italy and specialise in diplomacy in Rome at the LUISS School of Government. I also took a front-end online coding course aimed at empowering women in tech.
In 2022 I moved to Brussels to work at the European Commission Directorate-General for Budget (DG BUDG) as a Blue Book trainee. Afterward I joined an NGO bringing together companies and academics working in extended reality (XR) in Europe. My tasks here were to lead a project funded by the European Commission called “XR4Human” and help create an online forum for discussing how to make XR more inclusive.
In the summer of 2022, I was asked by the Chamber of Commerce of Lake Como to organise a couple of events related to sustainability, tourism and the film industry in Northern Italy during the 79th Venice Film Festival. This was very nice as it was the first one to take place after the lockdowns, and because it happened at a time that tech innovations – from XR to AI – started playing a more central role in entertainment.
You’ve just finished your Charlemagne Prize Academic Fellowship. What was your project about?
My project was titled “How can we make the global race to the metaverse European-like? Developing a business and policy model to build European industry consortiums”. The project was divided into three working papers. The first, titled “From the Universe to the Metaverse: What the Aerospace and Aviation Industry Consortiums Can Teach to European (And Global) Xr Businesses”, discusses why it makes economic sense for the private and public sectors to collaborate in the XR industry. The second, called “A digital renaissance in Europe: Why New Technologies Are an Historical Opportunity for European Leaders”, delves into how Europe can become a frontrunner for digitisation. The last one, a policy brief titled “From the United States to Europe: Collaboration Is Key for the Metaverse to Succeed”, gives recommendations for improving collaboration between the public and the private sector, and between Europe and the US.
Professor Wolfgang Ischinger mentored you during your time at the Hertie School. How did this experience shape your career?
Doing my MIA when I did was bad timing for my thesis, as I did most of the colloquia remotely due to Covid-19, but it was good timing because I was able to work with Professor Ischinger. I was very privileged to work with someone who supported my intellectual curiosity and freedom.
Professor Ischinger has shaped my career in two ways. First, he has served as a long-time mentor and is even following my current project. Second, he taught me how to structure solutions. Already during my thesis, I appreciated that Professor Ischinger did not give me answers right away but rather encouraged me to think about the right questions. I think that finding solutions to complex problems requires this kind of multi-faceted thinking, and I hope I am learning it through Professor Ischinger’s mentoring.
Which skills from the Master of International Affairs helped your professional development?
Besides problem-solving, the programme provided me with a very specific practical skill: blogging. During a course held by Professor Hanna Schwander, I was asked to create a blog on Italian politics. I called it “Res publica” because of my love for Roman history. Keeping a blog for an entire semester was not easy because we had to write regular entries. However, during the pandemic, that experience came back when I started the front-end coding course. In 2022, after the lockdown, I created a new blog that would take political economic trends that I thought were going to be relevant and explain them in a metaphorical way. “The future blog”, which I am now reworking, discusses my interests in tech, finance and security from my own experiences while promoting two of my core values: health and inclusion. The Hertie School taught me the discipline needed to run a blog, as well as how important it is to be inclusive and open about health.
Is there anything else you take with you from your time at Hertie?
It was an honour for me to study at Hertie when President Enderlein was still here. I will always remember his kindness, especially when Covid-19 hit Northern Italy.
Hertie taught me that you cannot know where you are going if you don’t know where you are coming from. I will always know that I come from the Hertie School.
Elena is always interested in exploring potential collaborations and welcomes feedback on her blog. Feel free to reach out to her at basconeelena@gmail.com.
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