Originally from Egypt, Adam had spent 6 years working across advocacy and strategy consulting, specialising in the technology and public sector industries, before joining the Master of Public Policy (MPP) programme.
Most recently, as a management consultant working with governments in the Middle East, Adam focused on digital transformation and AI strategy. “I was helping governments with their national AI strategies – everything from how they could develop sovereign capabilities like hyperscale data centres, and how they could make sure their enterprises and national champions were at the frontier of technology adoption,” he says.
With an undergraduate degree was in Social Research and Public Policy, Adam was keen to return back to his roots and build on his expertise.
“I realised I needed more policy education, so I asked myself where the best place I could possibly aim for would be,” he says.
The network gained through the MPP was also a draw for Adam. “I heard a lot about the programme – the community, the people, and the fact that you meet people from very different backgrounds and from all over the world. That was a really big selling point for me. There are 60-plus nationalities represented, and that mattered a lot,” he shares.
The expansive network of guest speakers and Visiting Professors at the School also appealed to Adam, and he engaged with it extensively during his year. “The guest lecturers that came through Professor Ciaran Martin’s classes, like Visiting Fellow Jen Easterly, were brilliant,” he says.
Adam’s interest in AI led him to join research groups within the wider University, “With Research Impact Oxford I worked on the intersection of AI and cyber – specifically, whether AI has the potential to increase the scale, frequency and speed of cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure.”
He went on to win a prize for this research, something he credits to his learning on the MPP: “The only reason that paper was as strong as it was is because of the conversations I had with my Blavatnik supervisors, the materials they directed me to, and the insights they shared with me, and because of MPP modules like ‘New Rules of The Internet’ and ‘Statecraft and Cyberspace’.”
Within the MPP, Adam led the Technology cluster, supervised by Fellow of Practice Aaron Maniam, where students interested in technology policy met to discuss the topic in greater depth. Adam also introduced an AI policy reading group, providing students with an additional space to delve deeper. “It was a space for us to get together, and exchange ideas around AI safety, and become more aware of the key societal risks and the policy proposals to mitigate them,” he says.
Beyond the this, Adam found learning alongside a diverse, global cohort hugely valuable – and credits them with changing his perspective on policymaking.
“Before the MPP, I strongly believed that local solutions were the only thing that really mattered. But the more I spoke with people in my cohort, and the more we exchanged experiences about our governments, our societies, and our cultures, the more I started seeing similarities between my national context and theirs. There were lessons there that were clearly transferable and exportable from one national context to another. That was a big shift in how I think.”
Now approaching the end of his MPP experience, Adam is in Brazil for his policy report placement, working with tech start-up Colab. “Colab provides digital public infrastructure for municipal governments in Brazil. That means they provide a lot of the back-end systems that municipalities need in order to provide services to the public,” he says.
Adam’s work is focused on how technology can be used to make government services more proactive. “I am doing a lot of stakeholder interviews and field research with different municipalities and local stakeholders to understand where the bottlenecks are, and where AI could help. The key question is how to deploy this technology in a way that is secure, private, democratic, and not too intrusive on citizens’ private lives,” he says.
The placement has proven the perfect place for Adam to apply the knowledge and skills he developed on the MPP. “The classes and Applied Policy Modules have been directly relevant. What I am doing here is exactly the kind of work we read case studies about in class.”
“A lot of it also relates to the soft skills we developed through modules on crisis management, communication, and public leadership.”
“When you are working with different municipalities and policymakers who do not necessarily speak your language and who have very specific problems, there is a lot of nuance. You would not necessarily have that nuance if you had not experienced the MPP. I felt very ready when I came here because of that experience,” he adds.
Looking ahead, Adam leaves the MPP with stronger policy skills, a broader perspective and practical experience he can take into his next role.