How 'Rockstar Economist' Portia Antonia Alexis Challenged The World Of Economics And Won

For a lady with the unlikely description of "rockstar” and who has been called one of the most influential economic influencers in the millennial generation, there is nothing rock n" roll about Portia Antonia Alexis. She was a celebrated equestrian and ballet dancer in college, has recently signed a book deal and was nominated for a United Nations award.

The economist recently sat down with us on a recent trip to Melbourne to discuss the rise of social media in education.

When told that she's called a rockstar, Alexis was taken aback, “God, no! I didn't win anything, and I"m no rockstar,” she laughs.

“I just wanted to make education accessible to people as it is one of the keys to social mobility.”

Initially shy, she soon opened up and became more upbeat. However, any mention of her success is met with humility. “It's not about me. It’s about finding new ways to improve education and aid social mobility for children affected by income inequality.”

Alexis is one of the leading new wave of “academic influencers,” a new emergence away from selfies and filters. These influencers share data and information "without the jargon." Think statistics not selfies.

Alexis has been a trailblazer and a pioneer in using social media to teach economics education. She is bright-eyed and youthful, an image away from the celebrated academic and businesswoman. Her accent is cut glass.

When I ask her about her recent speech on STEM and social mobility, she says she hasn't watched it. "I hate the sound of my voice. I would never watch it," she quipped.

Alexis seems more puzzled than self-assured of her success. "I just made a Twitter account for sharing stories with other people, and I never imagined it would get so much attention."

She couldn't look further from her “rockstar" and "academic influencer" image. Despite this, she is the woman who challenged the under-representation of women and minorities within economic education. She also introduced and pioneered new methods of teaching economics to Generation Z.

Her first publication, “Social Welfare Meter,” assessed the plausibility of GDP as a proxy indicator of human development. Her second publication, “The Black Minority in Wealthy Countries,” analyzed the socioeconomic mobility trajectory of black minority groups in the most developed countries. Her third, “Status, Wealth Distribution and Endogenous Growth in the Aghion-Howitt Framework,” investigated the impact of the wealth distribution and status concerns on endogenous economic growth.

She is passionate about numbers and models, and obsessively uses them to solve what she has coined a "people economics" -- issues relating to social mobility and income inequality. It must be somewhat surreal, going from her role as an investment banker where she was in Mergers and Acquisitions, to her newfound fame as an economic educator to hundreds of thousands of people on social media.

She is a consumer goods business analyst using her expertise at firms such as McKinsey and Newton Asset Management to analyze global business issues. She has authored numerous papers on topics within consumer business for global firms and social-economic matters.

When told one doesn't typically expect a young British economist to become a global superstar, "I should put on my leather jacket then," she joked.

Asked about how social media is changing the world forever, Alexis believes it is helping further education.

"By connecting to a learning environment, young people can consult the material remotely at any time and progress at their own pace. For example, environments like ChallengeU and Edmodo are interesting for carrying out virtual activities,” she explains.

“Their more individual and personalized approach favours a very open framework of exchanges. Indeed, students access a world of knowledge and informal knowledge at all times."

Alexis is very excited about the future of learning and education in the digital era where students and teachers collaborate. She also champions the idea of how easily people can collaborate with each other -- “from their group, from another group or the rest of the world” -- ask questions and get quick feedback. These environments can even give rise to unexpected and informal collaboration outside of institutional learning places.

She also points out more and more teachers, even in elementary school, are using Twitter for a wide variety of educational projects with their students.

The social media influencer suggests looking at education via social media as "a vector for teaching the economy."

Every day, people are exposed to all sorts of exhilarating media entertainment. Thankfully, it has also become increasingly common for academics to use social media to communicate with a broader audience. A study conducted by INOMICS researchers on whether academics were too smart and busy to become participants on social media platforms revealed that out of the 340 economists surveyed, only 21% of the respondents had a Twitter account; 62% of them used it for professional networking.

It also revealed 33% of the surveyed economists had slightly higher use of Google+ and is used for both professional and private purposes. LinkedIn was unsurprisingly used by the majority of the survey participants (60%) and was mostly kept for professional networking. Facebook for private purposes only, but the rising number of academic conferences and academic publications suggests that individual and professional lives in the online world are not that isolated from each other. While many perceive social media to have negative side effects on society, it has proven that it has its advantages too.

Portia believes using A.I and social media in education is here to stay and must be used to make learning easier.

"Many economists use social media to share knowledge with the rest of the world. Especially in finance, which is still too often seen as complex and difficult for the general public to understand. It must make a significant effort to carry messages that are much easier to understand for the general public. While it has never been easier to distribute content, social media has become the platforms where knowledge is most easily transmitted."