Four Master of Global Affairs (MGA) students recently teamed up to compete in the Geneva Challenge, which invites master’s students from around the world to address a global concern. Their competitive proposal earned them a spot as a semifinalist and shed light on a pressing issue faced by international migrant communities.
Caitlyn Andrews, Alycia Lidwell, Kimberly Minda, and Charlie Rojas are all second-year students in the MGA program, on track to graduate in 2026. Although all four students share a passion for international affairs, they each hail from unique backgrounds and have distinct interests.
“I'm not from Texas, but I learned that Rice University is one of the best schools in Texas and in the south,” said Lidwell. “When I was accepted, I couldn't believe it, and I knew I couldn’t possibly pass this opportunity up. I have not regretted that choice.”
Born and raised in Louisiana, Andrews described the MGA as “a dream program” that was close to home and supported exactly what she wanted to do. Rojas noted that the MGA program interested her because of the vast alumni network in Houston. Minda, a Fulbright Scholar from Ecuador, brought her family with her to Houston.
“For me, it was really important to have a good community and to have the chance to connect with different activities around the city,” said Minda. “I love what the university offers. I love the community, and I love the national and international students.”
Minda previously worked for the International Organization for Migration in Ecuador. Her initial intent when joining the MGA program was to learn the skills needed to launch an NGO. Since then, she has discovered a love of research and teaching, which has inspired her to apply for Rice’s doctoral program in sociology.
Andrews, Lidwell, and Rojas all initially wanted to pursue careers in the Foreign Service. However, through their coursework and experiences in MGA’s D.I.P.L.O. program, they have all discovered new potential career interests in the energy industry. Rojas is interested security or risk mitigation, while Andrews wants to explore community support and international government relations with energy and oil and gas companies. Lidwell explained how the MGA program helped reshape her focus:
“This semester, we are taking energy geopolitics, which helped me realize how much I love energy security and energy geopolitics,” said Lidwell. “Part of the reason I was first interested in the Foreign Service is because humanitarian efforts and social justice issues are important to me. My goal is to find where security and social justice intersect and to make a difference in that space.”
When she first heard about the Geneva Challenge, Rojas was immediately interested.
“The MGA program sent out an email informing us that the Geneva Challenge was accepting applications,” said Rojas. “I approached Alycia, Kimberly, and Caitlyn to see if they would be interested in forming a team, and they all said yes.”
The Geneva Challenge is a competition that aims to advance developmental international goals, accepting applications from five different regions of the world, including North America and Oceania, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Three teams from each region are selected as semifinalists. The Rice MGA team was one of three semifinalists in the North America and Oceania region.
This year, the challenge requested projects that proposed innovative solutions to challenges involving migration.
“We explored the different approaches to addressing issues of migration,” said Rojas. “For example, what is the process of being a migrant? What is the process of integrating in a new country? What are the legislative processes? Furthermore, did we want to look through the eyes of a government, or did we want to look through the eyes of a migrant? And then, did we want to look through the eyes of a displaced person, or even a student?”
Ultimately, it was Minda’s personal experiences with integration that inspired the team’s proposal.
“With Kimberly’s experiences in mind, we started talking about how there's a lack of a trusted system to verify or recover academic and professional credentials, especially in the event of being a forcibly displaced person,” said Rojas. “If you already went through years of getting your credentials for a specific career, once you're in your host country, it becomes incredibly difficult to stay in that profession.”
The team discussed how the inability to transfer an existing career to another country can impact integration into communities. Through the Geneva Challenge, the Rice MGA team developed a proposal, Implementing the International Credentialing System for Forcibly Displaced Persons, a credentialing transition framework that could be implemented in any country. The system, as detailed in the proposal, would provide “a secure, interoperable digital platform that enables displaced people to verify, recover, and share their qualifications across borders.”
“We hear a lot about access to health, access to education, access to different things to be a part of a community,” said Minda, “but if people don't have the credentials to connect their previous experiences to the new country, integration becomes incredibly difficult.”
Although the Rice MGA team was not selected to continue as a finalist in the challenge, their efforts shed light on the importance of a pressing global matter that impacts over 123 million forcibly displaced people.
“We found out that other teams came up with similar ideas,” said Andrews. “Many people see this as a long-term solution because it can boost local economies, it can reduce migrant dependence on governments, and it will give more independence to migrants, who can obtain jobs in areas which they have already been trained. Also, it demonstrates that this is not only happening in America. It's a worldwide issue that migrants everywhere face.”
The project also highlighted the benefits that a credentialing system would have for the host country and its economy.
“We believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” said Lidwell. “For people to be able to come here and have the ability to realize their dreams and efforts through a safe, streamlined, and efficient process is helpful for them and for us as a larger community.”
Post-graduation, the team members plan to take the lessons learned from their experiences working together on the Geneva Challenge into the next chapter of their lives.
“We all can learn from different cultures and the different skills that people have around the world,” said Minda. “I feel that what we created was not only interesting, but it was incredibly important. And that's the ultimate goal of being a part of the MGA program and having these immersive, diverse, and meaningful experiences.”
Rice University’s Master of Global Affairs is a two-year professional master’s degree co-sponsored by the James A. Baker, III Institute for Public Policy and the School of Social Sciences. Our location in the heart of Houston, Texas provides the perfect setting for students to engage with global energy companies, Fortune 500 organizations, local and Federal government entities, and international nonprofits.