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  Agnieszka Zajac

Ross Global Experience Award 2019

Moshi, Tanzania

Volunteering at African Impact was a time of deep learning and growth for me. The people that I met during my time in Tanzania inspired me, challenged my perspective, and became my friends. I would recommend the organization for anyone considering volunteering or interning abroad, especially because African Impact is focused on sustainable work. At each site across the ten countries, hired project managers and assistants lead the ventures year-round.

Aside from volunteering, I had incredible opportunities to explore Moshi and Tanzania during my free time on the weekends. One of the most memorable experiences was participating in the Msaranga Tembo Tour, led by a tour group that was incubated through African Impact. The men led us around the local neighborhood and showed how the trees and plants were used for natural remedies. We tasted banana beer and wine for the first time, commodities that could not be found in the city. Finally, the tour included a interactive drumming and dance with the Samba Tribe of Tanga. This cultural immersion exposed me to another perspective in Tanzania and is one I will never forget.

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Agnieszka Zajac

Ross Global Experience Award 2019

Moshi, Tanzania

During my time in Tanzania, there were three consistent projects that I worked with Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, I was assigned to a fourth project: making Ecobricks. African Impact started this initiative during my time there, in order to positively reverse the influence of climate change and plastic waste in the Moshi community.

The first week this project started, we walked around African Impact’s neighborhood in search of plastic bottles, bags, wrappers and other items that could fit inside a plastic bottle. I was surprised to witness the easiness of the task and the large amount of trash found on the road sides. The project manager, however, reminded us that although more trash is thrown to the side of the road, Tanzanians produce less waste than Americans.  I learned that the difference does not lie in the waste consumption, but in the garbage and recycle services.

Once we gathered enough plastic, we each found a stick and began pushing the plastic into the bottles. The purpose of this was to minimize the air bubbles and create a dense consistency. These Ecobricks were then taken to the site where the English classes were taught. We began building two benches made out of the Ecobricks on the preschool's playground, which was attached to the church.  In order to make the bench, we dug holes, added rocks for the foundation, made concrete and finally laid the Ecobricks. Although I was unable to see the end result of the benches, this was a great opportunity to contribute environmentally to Moshi’s community.

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Agnieszka Zajac

Ross Global Experience Award 2019

Moshi, Tanzania

The adults that attended the Beginner’s English class were very curious and motivated to learn the language. Many of them overcame obstacles, like taking time off work or walking up to 90 minutes, just to participate in the lessons offered by African Impact. I began developing close relationships with the students. I shared many stories with them about my large university experience or my wonderful family.

While I continued learning more about my students through their class assignments, I realized that I didn’t know much about why they were there. I asked the lead teacher if I could take one class to have them share stories with me, as a way to practice their English and facilitate further relationship building. Through this, I gained further respect and inspiration from each of their stories.

When I asked the students why they wanted to learn English, many of their answers related to the tourism industry of Moshi, a town on the edges of Mount Kilimanjaro. A 30-year old student responded that he wanted to speak English because he currently faced communication challenges at work. As a porter he helped tourists climb Kilimanjaro’s summit and a majority of the hikers spoke English. Another 20-year old student wanted to learn English so that he could get a job as a driver, learn about other cultures and make friends from other countries. Doing this exercise with my students amplified my purpose and desire for them to succeed in the class.

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Agnieszka Zajac

Ross Global Experience Award 2019

Moshi, Tanzania 

This past May I traveled to Moshi, Tanzania to volunteer onsite with African Impact, an establishment awarded as one of the World’s Top Volunteer Abroad Organizations. Operating in 10 countries, African Impact focuses on creating transformative and impactful experiences for communities, wildlife and volunteers through their emphasis on responsible travel and volunteering. Each African Impact site differs in the projects offered and purposes served. 

I applied for this service learning opportunity through University of Michigan’s Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates (GIEU) program. However, it wasn’t until my arrival in the country when I fully understood what I would be contributing during the four weeks. Out of the ten ongoing projects in Moshi, I was assigned to three that I worked with Monday through Thursday.

After eating breakfast with the other volunteers at the African Impact home, I was driven to a nearby church, where the pastor generously allowed African Impact to use the space for classrooms. On his porch, I taught Beginner’s English to seven adults. Based on the existing 20-week curriculum, I helped the local teacher craft lesson plans for each week. During my time, I made worksheets and taught the lessons, with the teacher helping and translating when needed.

Following Beginner’s English, I spent my time with the newly created men’s group. Their sessions altered between beginner’s computer lessons and team-building exercises. This was all in preparation for their entrepreneurial launch in finding an additional source of income. One idea they brainstormed during my time in Moshi included making sandals.

After men’s group, I was driven back to the African Impact home for lunch where all the other volunteers met and discussed their morning projects. Once lunch was over, a local project manager, three volunteers and I were driven to our final project of the day. This consisted of visiting the “Wazee”, or elderly, who lived in a government-funded facility. We walked door to door, greeting each individually with a piece of fruit and the Swahili we learned. After visiting each elder, we asked them to join us outdoors in the community area where we led exercises, shared stories, or played bingo. The above photo depicts our volunteer group with the Wazee after our final game of Bingo. 

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Coming back from Peru, I see the world, especially the business school, a little bit differently. I feel like my opinions on how businesses function, what strategy is, how to communicate, etc. have all been colored by my weeks in Peru. Even though I was there for a relatively short period of time, I feel more open minded and more ready to take on the world. 

I'm currently working on implementing my project now: implementation itself is a hard road, but I've realized that strategizing for an NGO isn't enough. I want to be involved in the implementation of the project as well. The feeling of creating impact, for me, comes from implementation itself. I want to feel as if I have created a real change in the environment that I worked in, and with the implementation of the herbal remedy product offering, I feel like I will have done that. 

This project also showed me so much about leadership - learning how to be a cross cultural leader was really important for me and something I can see in how I now approach leadership problems. Being a leader to people older than you, more experienced than you, and in a different language was a great learning experience. I plan to take these findings into every new project that I embark on in my future. 

- Pooja Subramaniam

Ollantaytambo, Peru --> Michigan

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Maya Malouin

Global Experience Award

Tokyo, Japan

It still feels unreal that my  time in Japan is coming to an end. This past week, I have been starting to say my goodbyes. The rest of the interns have been leaving one by one. Last week, we had our goodbye dinner and reflection circle, and now there are only two of us left in the country. I also met up with my two host families and was able to give them some farewell gifts and hopes to stay in contact.

For the last few days, I have been traveling on my own in Nikko. Nikko is a UNESCO World Heritage Site around 1.5 hours north of Tokyo with amazing temples, food, and nature. I’ve been taking my time solo traveling here to reflect on these past few months and the experiences I’ve had. Despite some mishaps (caught hiking on the top of a mountain in a storm and leaving my lunch and water on the bus), this has truly been a great end to my trip. The photo pictured above is one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen, and it reminds me that I’m so incredibly lucky to have been able to travel across the world for my first internship experience. Wanted to take this chance to thank all of my family, friends, coworkers, and other supporting me to make this summer possible! I have learned and grown so much, and I can't wait to come share my experiences on campus.

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Maya Malouin

Global Experience Award

Tokyo, Japan

Perhaps the most difficult thing in Japan this summer was the work culture. As an intern group, this was one of the largest struggles we faced. Not only were we working in a culture we were unfamiliar with, but we were also working with people from other cultures we were unfamiliar with. 

There was one instance where we had a major disagreement, and it took the whole group stepping back to realize they key factors were from our cultural differences. The root cause was different styles and work ethics among our group. The European students tended to be more casual, work was only meant for within working hours, and conversations during work were the norm. On the other hand, the Asian students preferred working hard during all hours of the day, no matter if we were working overtime. Overtime, these issues escalated, and there was one point of major conflict. I was able to talk with each of the students involved and discuss their points of view and how their needs were not being met, eventually connecting the group again as everyone understood where the others were coming from. From this, I was able to learn the importance of communication when working across cultures, and it was probably the most important skill I gained along the way.

This internship was hard, we faced multiple dimensions of culture shocks. However, throughout the two months of working together, we were able to overcome the challenges that came our way, and we came out of it with friends, family, and a support system from all around the world. 

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Maya Malouin

Global Experience Award

Tokyo, Japan

One of the main projects we work on during this internship is called NexGen. The premise of this event is open innovation between foreign students and companies in Japan. Last week we were each assigned companies to work with in pairs, and starting Monday we began working from their office. Each company gave us a specific project to work with and try and come up with an innovative solution to their problems. 

The company I’m working at is called NEC (Nippon Electric Company), it is one of the largest IT and technology companies in Japan, and they even have a world-wide customer base. Me and my internship partner were assigned to two different projects within the company. He would be working on a project focusing on healthcare in rural India, while I would be focused on integrating technology into alternative and Pre-K education. My project had only just began two months prior in the business incubation unit, so most of the work I did was ideation and market research. My official title at NEC was Business Incubation Consultant Intern, and my role focused largely on giving an international viewpoint for the direction of the project. Throughout this project, I have been able to not only come up with new ideas and direction for the project, but I have also attended many different meetings: everything from presenting stakeholders to speaking to the engineering and design teams. Although NEC is a extremely large company, the unit I was in felt like I was working in a startup. 

After the two weeks of working at NEC, I presented my pitch at the final event. All of the companies participating sent representatives and chosen judges. After delivering our pitches, I was awarded the third place prize. This experience being able to work on a hands on project within a large established organization in Japan was one of the coolest periods of the internship. Not only was I able to meet a whole new group of coworkers, but I was able to get a glimpse into the work life of an average Japanese company. 

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As my time in Ollanta draws to a close, I know this project has only really started for me. Now that I've understood the situation that Sacred Valley Health must deal with, I know that it's more crucial than ever that they find alternative methods of sourcing income (rather than the grants they currently rely on). 

I came into this project with three potential models (2 of which were asked to be analyzed by the founder of the NGO). These three models were 1) A store/selling products to tourists model; 2) promatoras themselves selling products in their communities; 3) A new, fresh look at donations through sponsorship. 

After my two weeks the model I was most excited about, model 2, I already know could never work. But not for the logistic or cost-based factors I originally guessed. Instead, I don't believe it will work due to social factors in the communities. These women work together as a community, but jealousy and stigma around money are very apparent in this area. If a promatora tried selling something to her neighbor, this would be looked down upon as there would be questions as to why she was given the chance to make more money for herself and why she was trying to get money from her neighbors. 

I wasn't really prepared for this type of social norm to be what didn't make a model work, but that's what I'm now realizing is the whole point of field research and drawing upon local knowledge. From afar, you can talk about models that would work, but in practice, these types of models are few and far between. I think that's what has really interested me about this work: I'm taking what I've learned about business model innovation, social impact finance, and Latin America and actually putting it to the test. 

And now, it's back to school. Albeit, a bit late and a bit tired. 

-Pooja Subramaniam

CK Fellow

Ollantaytambo, Peru

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[from Aug. 26th]

In honor of #WomensEqualityDay today, I want to share the project I've been working on for the past few months. In partnership with an NGO in Peru, I have been examining how the intersection of women's health education and sustainable income creation can grant women more equality in high-altitude communities in Peru.

In the Sacred Valley specifically, men have capitalized on the booming tourism industry by becoming guides and porters, making a steady income, having the opportunity to learn Spanish and English (rather than their native Quechua), and meeting people from around the world. The women of these same communities have not been so lucky. Although textiles and artisanal craft selling have bolstered their incomes, the sale of these goods is often dependent on an image of traditionality. Thus, while most of the men have the opportunity to create careers by moving towards the modern, women are often kept from accepting more modern norms and education.

The NGOs, social enterprises, and government efforts that fight for these women are key in increasing women's equality - but they struggle, as reliance on grants and donations limits their ability to source top talent, pay salaries, and cover operating expenses. Innovative business models that straddle the lines between corporate and charitable are vital to the future of these organizations - and the future of the women they help.

-Pooja Subramaniam

Ollantaytambo, Peru

C.K Prahalad Fellow

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1st week in South East China

Hi Everyone, I start this blog to share my experience in China. My China trip includes 6 cities in 4 weeks. My project for Ross China Fellowship is a market study for a None Emergency Medical Transportation for China older generation. In addition to the Ross China fellowship, I also will visit some suppliers for my work.

On Aug. 5th Monday, I started my trip in Shanghai. For the first two days, I stayed in Jiading district, which is an industrial district in Shanghai. Twenty years ago, it was considered a suburban area (rural area), most of the residents were farmers. They represent the population who has low income. In the past decade, the auto industry moved in and brought many international companies along with it. Many of them have established HQs, R&D centers and factories here. Many office workers, engineers and high skilled laborers moved in. Since then the local economy has been booming very fast. Today, Jiading is one of the satellite centers in Shanghai, roughly 3 million people live here.   

During the time I stayed in Jiading, I visited one of my suppliers Brose. They are a German company, manufacturing seat structures. I spent 2 days at their site, visited their stamping and welding plant. At night time, Brose employees took me to one of the business centers in Jiading, I experienced the local residents’ night life.

On the 3rd day of my trip, I moved to Pudong Lujiazhui district. Similar to Jiading, it was a suburban area, then it developed into a financial center during the past 30 years. Most Fortune 500 companies established their HQs in this area. It has 3 buildings on the list of “The Tallest Buildings In the World”. Most Chinese local people consider it to be the Manhattan of China.

Ford is one of the partners for my Ross China fellowship project. Their HQ is located in the center of Pudong Lujiazhui District. I visited the site on Aug. 8th, Thursday. My meeting started with and introduction of the University of Michigan Ross. Followed with a presentation about the Ross project, the entire discussion lasted about 3 hours. They were very pleased with my presentation. They also shared with me their previous research; I found it would benefit my research.

In the afternoon, I went to Shanghai Hongqiao high speed railway station. Because the station is connected to Hongqiao airport, it is considered to be one of the busiest stations in the world. In the past decades, China has really been trying to build their high-speed railway system. My trip from Shanghai to Nanjing only took about 1 hour, the distance is equivalent from NYC to Boston.

Nanjing was the capital for 6 dynasties in Chinese history, included for the Republic of China. My main purpose for Nanjing is to visit Ford Nanjing R&D center. I spent one day over there, had conversations with Chief Engineer for Vehicle Interior design. I also participated in the employee party for their newly formed group, vehicle Instrument Panel group.

The 2nd day it was rainy; I went to the President Palace in the center of Nanjing. It was a very educational visit, I learned a lot about the history of the Republic of China.  In the evening, I went to a very culturally inferenced restaurant. All the dishes are traditional Nanjing local food.

It concludes the first week of my trip in SouthEast China. For the 2nd week, I will visit 2 cities in South West China, Chongqing and Chengdu.

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Last year, I made a small report on my own personal thoughts on the Asian influence in Africa. I mostly focused on the infrastructure like that of the Maputo-Catembe bridge and Ethiopian airport, the soft power supposedly wielded by China upon the African Union, and contracts for precious metals and energy. However, in my most recent trip, I have learned about a very different area of influence that Asia has over Africa. In this photo, we see the Chinese company StarTimes, with support from China Aid, providing satellite TV to an extremely rural village in Ghana. My own personal observations lead me to hypothesize that this introduction of the communication channel of Satellite TV have made substantial changes in terms of the psychology and culture of these villages. I am even more fascinated by the content that the villagers are watching. For example, some of the shows that I saw people watching would include Bollywood and K-Drama series that have been translated into the local dialect of Twi.

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Justin Fang

C.K. Prahalad Fellowship

Maase Presby School, Ghana

8/16/2019

Last year, I helped to cofound a social enterprise named Lawdax, and so I was very lucky to have support from Ross to be able to go back to Ghana and visit our operations. The mission of the organization is to be able to provide healthy and organic foods for students in rural areas at affordable prices. Currently, we serve school lunches (typically Waakye, although we also sometimes provide plantains and beans with egg) to students at schools like the one listed above. We hold partnership with both this school, as well as another one located not far from this school. This has resulted in around 500 different students being served per week, with around 130 of the students eating from our stalls every day of the week. In addition, after serving the school lunches, we then also sell foods like fried yams to rural communities during the evenings. 

An attribute that we place great emphasis on, would be the profitability of Lawdax. Our goal is for the organization to be completely sustainable, and set up with the intent that it would be made and run by Ghanaians for Ghanaians. For us, this means a business that is able to provide value that the students would appreciate enough to pay for, to be able to assist us in helping them, and also in growing our operations. This has meant that setting up a reasonable pricing strategy has been particularly salient given the margins that we are playing with. For our operations at the schools, we are currently retaining the current pricing that my co-founder chose based on his understanding of the rural community. Due to the lack of funds for students, we do not want to experiment with the elasticity of the pricing, because our goal is more in being able to help as many students as possible rather than increasing profitability. Of course, there is somewhat of a contrast here as higher profitability could potentially mean that we actually can impact even more students due to more resources for expansion. However, from a more emotional standpoint, we think it would be immensely unfair and could lead to a loss in trust, if we are to change prices without adequate notice. As for the rural communities, we believe that we hold more of a quality rather than a pricing advantage, and as such, generally keep our prices pretty similar to that of our nearby competitors. In the future, we hope to be able to develop some land that we own as well as set up shops in more urban areas. In this situation, we will of course be heavily switching our pricing strategy to reflect upon these changes. However while our mix might become much more profitable, the heart and soul of the organization will still be revolving more around that of being a good solution for school children.

We currently have 6 employees working for Lawdax, and we have been very blessed to have their support and help. From the culture of the rural communities, there is a very strong “family” culture in which people treat each other like family, even if they are not blood relatives. As such, we have had amazing success in terms of accountability and trust within our organization so far. Of course, it is still very small and young, and it remains to be seen how this might change going into the future once we further scale. But as of now, I was very impressed with what I was seeing when visiting the villages of our employees. A particularly interesting concept that I got to touch on through actually learning more about the employees, would be the concept of lending and saving in the developing world. In the book “Poor Economics”, Duflo and Banerjee brought up the importance of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) in informal economies. This would be a system in which people save together, and there would be a rotation for which person would get access to the whole pot at once. Interestingly, there is a time difference between when a member gets their share, verses when everyone puts their money into the pot. As such, the person who is in charge of the ROSCA can take the money and use it to lend to other people. However, this is particularly risky, as it is a shorter time frame, and he would be liable to all of the members of the ROSCA if he is not able to come up with the money in time. And so, the interest rate is also extremely high given the risk involved, which can lead to crippling interest burdens for the borrowers, whos supposedly profitable businesses are not profitable once subtracting for the interest expense. One example of one of our employees would actually be someone who was a borrower from one of these ROSCA’s in Accra. She had to flee from the city due to her debt, but since joining Lawdax, the stability that we have provided her has helped to get her back on track. She is even able to now begin repaying back the moneylenders that she owes in Accra. Furthermore, given her own experience having successfully sold food in Accra, she is a great cook, and is able to make dishes that our customers also consider to very good tasting. 

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Justin Fang

C.K. Prahalad Fellowship

Accra, Ghana

8/15/2019

I had the chance to speak to Alice Osei Okrah, a family friend of mine who currently works for the transactions advisory department in the Ghanaian branch of Ernst and Young. Drawing from her immense experience working in the Ghanaian financial sector, she helped to share a lot of her thoughts on the current economic state of the country and what that might mean. Ghana currently has very inefficient capital markets, in which there is not enough volume of mergers and acquisitions to warrant specialized investment banking shops. As such, EY Transaction Services takes up a far wider role here in Ghana than it would in America, and is also proportionately a large player in this space. The stock exchange also plays a far different role in Ghana than it does in the US, as people like to hold onto their equity, so the exchange is very illiquid. 

On the other hand, she along with one of her co-workers, actually helped to provide some information about the education and agriculture sectors here in Ghana. This is of course directly pertinent to the work that I am currently doing as a C.K. Prahalad fellow, as I am currently working on starting a social enterprise to help provide nutritious and affordable meals to schoolchildren in rural parts of the country. They mentioned the tremendous challenges that small farmers face there in terms of logistics and transportation of their goods, and how public infrastructure make it so that the costs of the goods are far higher than what they should really be. Similar to how capital markets in Ghana would be considered efficient by US standards, it seems to me that there are also many institutional and political issues that make the agriculture and education areas very inefficient as well. Hopefully Alice can help to introduce me to a member of the ministry so I can learn more, but it will really depend on the timing of the trip.

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Justin Fang

CK Prahalad

Eastern Region, Ghana

8/18/2019

Today, I woke up late, waiting for church service to end so that the sleepy Ghanaian village of Begoro would stir to life. A little after noon, I then jumped onto a local taxi with Larbi, getting off around the outskirts of Bososo. There, we found a local farmer, Martin, who with his machete, helped to guide us up a local mountain covered by the thick African jungle. 

We hiked up the steep mountain covered by cocoa yams, plantains, vines, and trees that I cannot name. During a break, I ate cocoa fruit opened up with Martin’s machete, spitting out the cocoa seeds that are used to produce chocolate. Finally we made it to the solid rock wall near the top of the mountain. The view was gorgeous, encompassing Bososo and nearby New Tafo. Yet I wanted to get to the top of these rocky cliffs, so we slipped and slid all the way back to where we came, and took a tro-tro to a different trailhead. What started out as a well-maintained trail nestled by plantain farmlands quickly became pure jungle, and we followed Martin as he carved out a path for us. Eventually we found a clearing in the thicket, and with a few strokes of the machete, the land and sky opened up to our view. Stretched below us was a good portion of the Eastern Region, in which we could see up to even Koforidua. It wasn’t as amazing of a view as what I had previously seen in say South Africa, but I was still pretty impressed. I think what really made me appreciate it was more how we ended up the vantage point. Previously, we had been surrounded by bramble, and in the shade of the vegetation. So going from a somewhat more claustrophobic inducing route to this view was quite an experience.

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Anurag Bolneni

C.K. Prahalad Fellow

New Delhi, India

  The four years in college represent the most formative time in the life of many young adults – it certainly has been for me. I started a premed student with an inkling that business was truly my calling card. Two years later, by the end of sophomore year, I began questioning medicine as a career path after traveling to Nicaragua, speaking with my (now) mentors, and seriously reflecting on my ambitions. 

I’m now a senior in college and time seemingly flies by quicker every year. Six weeks in New Delhi passed by faster than I could have ever imagined, and I just finished my internship in Chicago… If the last three years have been a precursor, I imagine senior year will be over all too soon as well.

College is far too short to squander, so make the most of it. For those just beginning their collegiate journey, here are some insights that have been particularly helpful for me – I hope they help you as you navigate your own path:

Tenacity creates opportunity

Find your passion 

Build meaningful relationships

Here’s to The End of an unforgettable experience.

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Anurag Bolneni

C.K. Prahalad Fellow

New Delhi, India

~ Build meaningful relationships ~ 

Coming to Delhi as the only foreign intern and knowing very few people was difficult, but this incredible group welcomed me with open arms and made the transition easy.

My favorite part of interning with the National Health Authority was meeting and working with my fellow interns. Each of them brought unique experiences and perspectives that influenced how I thought about the world. Daily, I would have riveting conversations with them on a broad range of topics such as healthcare, politics, and business just to name a few. I always found it intriguing to hear their perspectives on these issues and understand how their thinking differed from the western world.  

Now, only a few weeks after our internship, many of them have gone on to work under some of the most powerful ministers in India and I’ve begun my internship in the U.S. Yet, we still keep in touch regularly, conversing about our evolving lives and sharing insights along the way.

Build meaningful relationships – the people you surround yourself with shape the way you think and the individual you become.