By: Carol Obando-Derstine

Instructions: In preparation for the final workshop on “Living an Impact-Focused Life,” consider the three main questions below as a reflection on your Impact Fellowship. Regard this reflection as a learning process to explore and express what you learned, as well as an opportunity to learn more about yourself. Focus on the three main questions. You may use the prompts to help you organize your thoughts, but these prompts are not aimed to limit your thinking. You are strongly encouraged to freely express your ideas and feelings.

 

1. What are the top three things you learnedduring your Impact Fellowship? Please elaborate.

Prompts: When elaborating on each thing you’ve learned, ask yourself four questions:

What did I learn?

How did I learn it?

Why does it matter?

What will I do in light of it?

 

For example, if you modified your understanding of a course concept through the IF, here are the questions you may ask to elaborate on what you’ve learned:

 

What is the concept? What specific occurrence relates to the concept?

How did the experience help you to better understand the course concept?

How did the concept help you to deal with any challenges or issues?

What complexities do you see now that you had not been aware of before?

Based on your analysis, what might you do differently in future academic activities?

I learned a great deal throughout the entire CSIF year-long program. The salient concepts were:

1. Design thinking process for a sustainability-focused idea

 

I learned the intricacies of implementing a sustainability-focused social innovation through experiential learning, which is the best way to learn. Through trial and error, we worked on things throughout the entire experience, and I also heard the experiences of fellow students who did the same.  

 

I appreciated learning about this through lectures from Khanjan and Bill and guest lecturers. Chris Kauffman’s presentation, using resources from Stanford University’s D School, University of North Carolina professor, and the Pittsburgh consultant stood out.  

 

What I learned matters because it gave me an appreciation for not waiting until all aspects of the idea are fully formed. If the person is passionate about the concept and the innovation can positively impact others, it is worth exploring how to implement it.  For example, I have wanted to start a waste-to-energy business using biomass for quite some time. This experience gave me the confidence to explore creating my business. Moreover, it connected me to leaders in the energy sector, such as my advisor, Dr. Carlos Romero. During our recent lab session, I shared my thoughts with him, and he is willing to keep chatting about this further during December or next semester. He even offered to allow me to intern in his lab, even though I will graduate in December, to keep learning about this topic. 

 

2. Business models

I appreciated that the class delved into how to commercialize our social innovation and clearly articulate our value proposition.  The business end of things for any idea seems to be where many inventors struggle.  Therefore, the focus on business models, how to scale up and when, funding opportunities from various types of funders, etc., were areas I needed to learn since I do not have a business education background.  Perhaps because I am an adult learner and have had more time to witness good ideas fail, I think this aspect of the year-long program was invaluable.  It was so important to focus on making an idea financially viable otherwise, it could become a money pit and not be able to truly reach the market and have the intended impact the inventor proposes.

 

3. Thermal Energy Storage

It was fascinating learning about thermal energy storage through this project. I learned more about it through the phase change material we used throughout the experimentation. I also learned about this way of storing energy through the modeling software we used entitled Ansys’ Fluent Modeling Software. I enjoyed the testing stage and learning about the instrumentation used at the ERC, such as data acquisition through the blue box and testing temperature using thermocouples.

 

Learning this type of storage was so important to me because I work in the energy sector. I am proud to have worked on a project testing other ways of controlling heat. It matters because R&D is so interesting to me. At work, there is now someone who oversees R&D enterprise-wide. Therefore, the more well-rounded I am, the greater my chances are to continue working with this group formed to manage innovative activities across all the companies our parent company oversees.

 

2. How did the Impact Fellowship facilitate your professional development? Please provide three examples.

Prompts: When elaborating on each experience that may facilitate your professional development, ask yourself four questions:

What did I learn or what did I learn about myself related to professional development?

How did I learn it?

Why does it matter?

How will I make use of this experience?

 

For example, if you realized that you learned some skills (which can be general skills such as critical thinking, systems thinking, cross-cultural communication, ethical decision making, leadership, or discipline-specific skills) that relates to your professional development, you may ask these questions as a reflection:

 

What is the skill? How does it relate to your professional development?

How did the experience help you to strengthen the skill? What did you do to build this skill? How did the skill help you to deal with some challenges?

What do you see now that relates to your career plan that you had not been aware of before?

Based on your analysis, what might you do differently regarding your professional development in the future?

 

The CSIF and our team’s energy project gave me a better understanding of:

 

1. Critical thinking

 

Throughout the entire class, we thought critically about the information we consume. Beyond just our project, our lectures centered on having a questioning attitude. Through exercises dedicated to driving at impact, the class trained us to have a keen eye on things. 

 

Critical thinking is the most valuable skill set anyone can have beyond empathy. It’s the same concept I once heard from a college president, “Trust in God, everyone else, show me the data.” I would leave my Monday class and talk to my kids about what I learned because I was excited to share this with them.  

 

Being a critical thinker is crucial because I want to go through life, not just accept everything I am told. I want to test, verify, and positively impact all I do. 

 

2. Design thinking process

 

Again, the components of the design thinking process had a direct professional development impact on me.  I want to enhance my ability to discern the different modes and become better at this iterative process.  As mentioned in various parts of this reflection, I want to start a business, which is exactly why I think it will help. I will put these learnings to practical use. 

 

3. Ethical decision making

 

Through the blog posts at the beginning of the year, I found it helpful to wrestle with the thorny issues of taking action. Training in how to incorporate ethics in all we do as humans prepares all students for the real world, where there are no clear-cut correct answers. It might simply be the lesser of two evils.  The exercises we did at the beginning of the fall semester were terrific and a great way to illustrate the challenges for leaders.

 

I put into practice ethical decision-making daily. I want to feel proud of who I am and for my family to feel the same.  

 

 

3. How did the Impact Fellowship help you grow personally? Please provide three examples.

Prompts: When elaborating on each thing that has helped you grow personally, ask yourself:

What was the personal growth?

How did I achieve it?

Why does it matter?

What will I do in light of it?

 

For example, if you became aware of some personal strength, weakness, assumption, or belief, you may elaborate on it by answering the questions:

 

What is the personal strength, weakness, assumption, or belief you became aware of as a result of reflection on your experience?

How did the experience help you to better understand or develop this personal characteristic? How did this personal characteristic influence your interactions with others?

What are the potential personal benefits or challenges related to this personal characteristic in other aspects of your life?

In what specific way(s) will you use this strength, improve upon this weakness, etc., in your life in the future?

 

This experience, along with the years in the Energy Systems Engineering program, gave me:

1. Patience

 

The experience helped me to grow my reservoir of patience, which I think sometimes is rather dry. I had to rely on my team members’ schedules, which did not always align with mine. I had to compromise on presentations even if I thought my suggestions might drive the point more effectively. Nonetheless, it is a life skill that one must have since almost all projects at work involve working with others. 

 

2. Team building and leadership skills

 

As a corollary to patience, team building is something I gained from this experience.  The focus on playing to a team’s strengths, building trust, giving, and handling feedback, and creating collaborative plans were all very helpful.  The ability for us to get together with our groups and think through these things, write about them in blog posts, and then put them into practice on our teams was crucial.

 

3. Sustainability focus

 

The third way that the CSIF program helped me to grow personally was to dig deep into all the ways I can live a more sustainable life.  Early in the class, we learned about the Three Pillars of Sustainability, which were more than the environmental focus, which is what I used to think.  The discussions on the resources to make a paper bag were not ones I had considered when I used to think it was much better than a plastic bag. It was also hearing other students describe what they do to live a more sustainable life that I could see all the areas of improvement in my own life.

 The class was nothing short of eye-opening in so many profound ways.  Please see me as a resource to tout to other students just how wonderful I thought the experience was. It was truly life-changing and I’m all the better for it.

Thank you, Khanjan, Bill, Sarah, and all the speakers who interacted with us for the time, attention, and energy expended to give us such a remarkable experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Carol Obando-Derstine, Jade Sessions, Christie Ortega and Andy Chung

Prompt:

From the “Story Elements” framework slides, CHOOSE ONE of the frameworks given. Doesn’t matter which – choose the one that speaks you to more. Once you’ve chosen one slide, ignore the other one.

– As a Project Team, construct a story about your project using the five story elements in the order in which they are given, #1 through #5. Each element should have one or two carefully constructed sentences.

– The result should be a coherent, beginning-middle-end story about your project which someone who is unfamiliar with your project can follow and understand. The blog entry should be written as a story, not a numbered list. You can write it as a first-person plural story – in other words, the character can be “we.”

– If you wish to make it longer than the 1-2 sentence-per-element length, have at it! Just make sure you are following the structure.

– Talk it through as a team. Does it make sense? Does it say everything you want and need it to say? If this were the structure of your final presentation (stretched out to 7 minutes), would it be successful, and would the referees know what you were talking about and why?

 

1. Attention-getter – make us listen

 

We are Thermosolar, and we are increasing photovoltaic efficiency through solar panel cooling. By attaching an enclosed box with a phase-changing material inside to the back of a panel, our innovation can make it at least 5% more efficient.

2. The Challenge – state or frame the problem as a world-level challenge.

In efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change, the world is transitioning to cleaner fuels and renewable energy, but solar power is not very efficient. As the temperature of the panel increases, the amount of power output decreases.

 

3. The Journey – explain your methodology in an active, action-oriented way.

Our team conducted experiments to measure the differences in power output of solar panels with and without PCM using different formulas for the PCM and sizes of PCM box. We also measured temperatures at the front and back of the panel to understand the thermal changes occurring over time with and without PCM.

4. The Battle – describe how, with the help of your allies (partners), you have or will overcome the challenge.

Tapping into the expertise of Dr. Romero, staff, and Ph.D. students at Lehigh’s Energy Research Center, we gained a better understanding of the type of PCM to use and the corresponding formula, the size of the PCM box, and the type of panel that would be suitable for PCM.

5. The Change – state the solution / outcome / catharsis of this story.

Our experiments resulted in an increased solar panel efficiency via higher voltage from solar panels that we paired with PCM than one without PCM. To illustrate the impact on a solar farm the same size as the one proposed at Lehigh University, increasing the efficiency of photovoltaics by 5% can generate 140 kW more, allowing Lehigh to use more of their energy generation on-campus and avoid paying PPL approximately $21,000 a year.