A recognized expert in international development and innovation, Dr. Roberto dos Reis Alvarez is the Executive Director of the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils (GFCC), a global network of more than 30 organizations around the world devoted to accelerating global competitiveness and prosperity. He is also a research scholar at Arizona State University (ASU). Dr. Alvarez is the co-creator of the GFFC’s Competitiveness Decoder™ (decoder.thegfcc.org), a first-of-its-kind, data-based tool to visualize the key drivers of national competitiveness. Prior to joining the GFCC and ASU, Dr. Alvarez was the Senior Manager of the Analysis and Strategic Projects Unit with the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI) – an organization that he joined in 2005 and where he held several other positions. During his time at ABDI, Dr. Alvarez coordinated ABDI’s bilateral innovation initiatives with the United States, Sweden and Germany, as well as economic integration initiatives with Africa and Latin America. He co-developed the C-Suite U.S. Brazil Innovation Summits and Innovation Learning Laboratory series, designed to spark business and research partnerships between the western hemisphere’s two largest economies. Dr. Alvarez has worked as a management and operations consultant for manufacturing and logistics and has co-founded three tech companies. He has taught graduate courses at various Brazilian universities and appeared in the media in Brazil and abroad (including in India, Sweden, Uruguay, the United States, and Venezuela). He currently sits on the boards of Global Urban Development, a global network of thought leaders concerned with world’s urban problems. He is an active angel investor and a former columnist for Startupi, Brazil’s leading media vehicle on startups and technology. Dr. Alvarez was trained in Quality Control and Productivity Technique at the Japan Productivity Center and in exponential technologies and entrepreneurship at the NASA AMES-based Singularity University. He holds a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering and an M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, as well as a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.