Sean C. Carroll

Sean Carroll is a former Senior Executive Service official in the Obama Administration, where he served as Chief of Staff and COO at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Now Senior Director at Creative Associates International, a nearly 40-year old company that manages international development assistance programs on behalf of the U.S. Government and other clients, Carroll heads the Creative Development Lab. He leads a team that develops, leverages and implements technology, innovation and partnership solutions. The Lab designed, built and brought to market CreativeU: lifelong learning for people in development, a modern approach to human and institutional capacity development centered on mobile, blended learning and customized, localized, multi-lingual content and delivery portals. CreativeU custom portals and projects are being used for job- and life-skills training and workforce development among youth populations, to promote learning around early warning systems to prevent school dropout, and to train artisans on how to bring products to market, among other learning objectives. CreativeU won a “pitch fest” at the Mobiles for Education Alliance annual global conference. Another Lab initiative – CreativeMapper – uses mobile geo-spatial data collection, mapping, analysis and visualization to map and mitigate violence in communities, equip youth around the world to engage locally on monitoring progress on the SDGs, track community and project activities and assets, and monitor and evaluate programs. Host of the U.S. edition of a series of global #PeaceHacks, the Lab also works on initiatives to use big data, drones, and other tools to predict, manage, and mitigate electoral or community violence. Other Lab tools include a mobile and tablet-based early grade reading app for Syrian refugee children and other Arabic populations.

Prior to joining Creative, Carroll served three years in the Obama Administration. He previously worked for the Club of Madrid, a Spain-based NGO whose members are 100+ former presidents and prime-ministers from 75+ countries; the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington, DC-based think tank; the U.S. House of Representatives, World Food Programme, European Commission, and, from 1986-1999, the National Democratic Institute, a democracy and governance capacity building organization.  He is a Board/Advisory/Executive Committee member of the Alliance for International Youth Development, Club of Madrid, Development Solutions Organization, Latin American Youth Center, Mobile Alliance for Global Good and TechChange. He has degrees from Johns Hopkins University SAIS and Georgetown University. He has lived in 8 countries, worked in more than 65, and travelled to more than 115. He speaks Spanish, Catalan and French well; and Arabic, German, Italian, and Portuguese poorly.