1: like the idea of a mantra as something that could be useful in explaining our project. I’ve come to accept that while mushrooms seem a natural solution to many issues in Sierra Leone, most people really understand very little about them and have a hard time differentiating them from most other crops. Much like what Ukweli has, if we just had three words and a name that we could put on every presentation I think it would get the message across much easier.

2: I think his discussion on jumping new a new curve is very relevant to our project. The greenhouses for example, are still on the same curve as traditional crops. They allowed any interested part to do something they already knew how to do better. Obviously there was substantial learning and education involved, but at its core it was not an entirely unimaginable concept to the people of Sierra Leone. Mushrooms however are fungi and not something that has ever been cultivated in Sierra Leone. The processes involved made little to know sense to almost everyone there. So while this is not an innovation in our context, it is for them. Thus we have to take even more care in every detail of the venture to ensure that we can create a market for mushrooms. In order to jump to the new curve there is significant leg work that must be done beyond traditional venture activities 

3: Guy’s discussion on how we do not choose our customers is definitely something we need to think about long term. While initially our plan is run a mushrooms farm, a model of greater impact would be to sell our expertise and know-how so that other people can grow mushrooms. In doing so, we may take an intial guess at who would actually be interested in it. We might be thinking that NGO’s are most interested. It might turn out however that maybe for whatever reason the Sierra Leone’s government takes a direct interest. Maybe we just sell to farmers. While absolutely need to have target customers in mind, we also need to be prepared to sell what we are doing to any potential customer.

4: Something I know we will be experiencing shortly with a paper and EPA proposal is that we should be constantly trying to perfect what we are doing and role out version after version. We now have an established method for growing mushrooms in Sierra Leone. That method will need to be refined by myself and people who work on this project after me to improve scalability and efficiency. If we are ever at a point where we think our processes are perfect we did something wildly wrong.

5: As far as presentations go, I think his advise on using 10 slides with 30 point font and doing it in 20 minutes could be particularly helpful with any of these projects. This semester we have actually begun moving away from using text altogether because if I put mushroom words on a powerpoint I will we get bunch of nods indicating understanding even though I know not a single person out there knows what I am talking about. 10 slides with pictures is short enough that people can remember but long enough to give sufficient detail.