Matthew Bickert Email & Phone Number

Remote

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Greater Pittsburgh Area

Paraguay

After a successful completion of his two years of service, Mr. Bickert was elected among his peers to serve as the Community Economic Development Sector Volunteer Coordinator. As Coordinator, Mr. Bickert’s primary responsibilities were providing technical and emotional support to Volunteers, facilitating resources, and acting as a liaison between Volunteers and staff. Mr. Bickert also worked closely with the CED sector team. He collaborated to plan, design and implement several trainings to more than 60 Community Economic Development Volunteers. Mr. Bickert also worked closely with the program team to cultivate and maintain partnerships with more than 30 local communities across Paraguay. Over the period of a year, he traveled extensively with the team and interviewed work counterparts, organizations, host families, and Peace Corps Volunteers. Amongst the Volunteer community, there were a number of difficulties in regards to sharing and accessing valuable technical resources. Mr. Bickert recognized the issue and initiated a solution, utilizing Peace Corps’ LearningSpace platform. LearningSpace is an online, Open Source learning management system for all Peace Corps Trainees and Volunteers. Mr. Bickert researched the programmatic intricacies and developed a digital repository for all technical resources. Mr. Bickert spearheaded the entire project, executing all goals, creating a User Manual for support purposes and managing the implementation of key tasks. In addition to the creation of the digital library, Mr. Bickert was the in-country liaison to a pre-departure informational course for incoming invitees. He interviewed and recorded all staff members and several volunteers to create introductory videos. He also edited, uploaded and organized all digital content to the LearningSpace platform and obtained Country Director approval for all work accomplished.

Paraguay

During his first year Mr. Bickert worked on a range of projects within the community of Santiago, Misiones. He co-facilitated teaching a youth micro-entrepreneurship curriculum to over 60 students. At the culmination of the course, he collaborated with students and teachers to organize a business exposition. Mr. Bickert also held a business plan competition, enabling the top two students to attend Paraguay Emprende, a national youth business competition. Outside of the high school, Mr. Bickert initiated a tourism project in conjunction with the Municipality of Santiago and youth group Jóvenes Cambiando Santiago (JoCSa). This 12-month project resulted in a complete makeover of the main entrance to Santiago. Through the solicitation of donations, over 200 national Tajy trees were planted to welcome visitors. In addition, a budget was quantified and funds were acquired to build a 10-foot, 3-D “Santiago, Misiones” welcome sign. This project became a tourist spot for visitors to take photos in front of the recycled art. Through an assessment of potential entrepreneurship opportunities, Mr. Bickert coached his youth group in identifying products and potential markets, as well as how to effectively market the product and identify pricing. Under the guidance of Mr. Bickert, JoCSa cut glass bottles and created cups to be sold at the town’s biggest festival. Over 150 glass cups were sold to the community in order to raise funds for future projects and promote Santiago from a touristic standpoint. He organized and facilitated an all-day presentation on the importance of recycling in the primary school. This presentation kicked-off a competition to collect plastic caps and plastic bottles filled with inorganic trash. In one month 12,705 plastic caps and 115 bottles were recycled. The bottles were used to construct eco-trash cans that were placed around the community as well as two eco-benches. The plastic caps were then used to create a 10-foot mural promoting Santiago.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

• Executed the SDLC process by writing business requirement documents, engaging the development team, and performing unit testing by running and approving test scripts• Worked along side other BAs and testers to review new system functionality, case scenarios and release procedures• Responsible for coordinating with technology, vendors and in-house end-users to monitor and remedy priority 1 and other performance issues to meet compliance standards and deadlines• Used previous experience and knowledge to engage in discussion with the business owners and application developers to determine development feasibility and future enhancements for the Aerial application• Maintained communication and relationships with outside vendors/customers by facilitating weekly status calls to review risk/issues and status of the project • Proficient in RUP methodology, Waterfall, Clarity PPM v13, Microsoft Office, SharePoint and SQL

Greater Pittsburgh Area

• Collaborated with PMs and Stakeholders to vet out system requirements/features to create business requirements and ensure deliverables• Coordinated monthly sprint release upgrades and enhancements for the Aerial application• Performed unit testing for all assigned releases• Developed desktop procedures and training guides for systems support and maintenance applications• Responsible for open tickets and systems support for the Care Management business unit

Silver Spring, Md

Conducted literature review of data published for the past 5 years concerning how hospitals apportion resources and the barriers inhibiting adverse event reporting.Analyzed and compiled data on the financial impact of medical devices to create a “business case” research report.Synthesized the data from the literature review to create an annotated bibliography. Ultimately this served as the framework for a 45-minute presentation to 20+ Senior Staff members from the Office of Surveillance and Biometrics.Created educational outreach program to inform and motivate 280 hospital CEOs to develop robust reporting systems, specifically with regard to medical devices.Quality Management Fundamentals Training from The Performance Institute.Basic Customer Relationship Management Training from The Performance Institute.Advanced Customer Service Training from The Performance Institute.United States Office of Personnel Management Confidential Security Clearance - Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing (e-QIP) Investigation Clearance

Bachelor Of Science, International Business

Activities and Societies: Student Government Finance Chair, Student Government VP, Habitat for Humanity, National Social Fraternity.

Economics And Cultural Studies Of The European Union