Blog post 7

1. List ten non-obvious assumptions about your target customers (or organizations) that you need to validate.

a. One assumption we have made so far, is that the children in Sierra Leone will be drawn to sweet potato cakes over other snack products.

b. We assume that at least for now we will be able to get sweet potatoes when we are in Sierra Leone along with the other ingredients we need for our recipes.

c. The group is also under the assumptions we will be able to find a local bakery to work at and use to practice our recipes. If we dont have access to workspace, working on the project will be difficult.

d. Another assumption is that the children will actually be able to eat our cakes. We currently believe that their shouldn’t be an issue, but we have to validate that.

e. The next assumption is that the children are willing to try a new idea and a brand new food product. We aren’t entirely sure they will accept our proposed solutions so validating that will be key.

f. The group is also currently assuming that street vendors will be willing and able to sell our products to a wild variety of children in order for the business to work.

g. Another assumption is that the food will be at a similar cost it is projected to be. We only have a small amount of data on the costs of food, so we will need to validate our estimates.

h. The next assumption is the shelf-life of the food. Currently we believe that the cake will last for a few days in a cardboard packaging, but we still need to test this.

i.We are also assuming that the mothers will approve of one of our recipes and will endorse us to other mothers and children to help the product take off.

j. Lastly, we are assuming that introducing this product will have a positive impact on the children and the country of Sierra Leone. We will still need to test whatever tangible results we can find to prove the impact we made.

2. List ten hypotheses about your project that you need to test during fieldwork.

a. One hypothesis is that the food won’t hurt the kids stomachs. Using high levels of Iron can be upsetting to one’s stomach so we must check for this side-effect.

b. Another hypothesis this that the food can have a shelf-life of 3 days in order to be sold to a wider radius. We have to test this idea.

c. Our third hypothesis is that we can find locally sourced foods for cheap. We believe this to be true but again, we need to test this on a large scale to determine if there is room for our product to grow.

d. Another hypothesis is that we are able to develop a program that can model Vitamin A. I plan on building a code using AMPL to model Vitamin A degradation to ensure our product maintains high levels of Vitamin A, as it’s the most needed micronutrient.

e. Our next hypothesis is that we can find a way to dry sweet potatoes at temperatures below 150 degrees Fahrenheit, in our to avoid Vitamin A degradation to sweet potatoes. We believe this to be possible, but given the small set of resources in Sierra Leone we may have to source from outside Sierra Leone to get that equipment.

f. Another hypothesis is that we can develop a process to mill the sweet potato into a powder so that it can be stored for long periods of time. If we can’t figure this out, our product will only be available for part of the year.

g. The next hypothesis is that the supplemented micronutrients will be bioavailable enough to be absorbed by the kids. We have to ensure the product is doing what it’s intended for.

h. Another hypothesis to test is that our packaging will be biodegradable and cheap enough. We haven’t decided on what product is best, but once we do we can choose a packaging that will be biodegradable and cost-effective.

i. The next hypothesis is that the mother’s will approve of our product. Sierra Leone is a country that follows a matriarchy, so the mothers approval for the product is crucial.

j. Our last hypothesis is that we can actually produce 500 cakes a day. We have to make sure we can get enough food and have a kitchen large enough to bake that much.

3. What do you think you bring to your team? How has your perception of your own strengths and weaknesses changed over the course of the class? Please be specific

I think that I bring strong leadership and diverse skills to the team. I’ve had many leadership opportunities in my days in the Boy Scouts and gathered valuable teamwork skills. I also bring diverse skills in my ability to code which is rare for a Bioenginner. I also have valuable past research experiences in Dr.Brown’s and Dr. Liu’s labs working on building codes to identify pollen samples under a microscope.

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