1. Identify three different primary stakeholders on your project, and come up with a list of 10 distinct questions you would ask each of them. Remember the aspirational / emotional /functional categories of needs and desires and try to find a balance of questions that might give you information in each of those areas.
   1. Plastic manufacturers 
      1. How will our bioplastic work with your existing manufacturing processes?
      2. Is there room for us to work with your company compared to other competitors?
      3. Do you think your customers will agree with this change?
      4. Does the process of making plastics have to change to accommodate our product?
      5. How much and what products (ex. agricultural waste) will they need us to supply?
      6. How much will it cost to convert the waste into bioplastics?
      7. How long does it take to produce a batch of bio pellets?
      8. What are they currently using to make their current type of plastic?
      9. What companies do they sell their plastic products to?
      10. Has the Philippines ban on plastic affected them at all?
   2. Farmers 
      1. What do you do with your agricultural waste?
      2. Would you be willing to sell your agricultural byproducts?
      3. How much waste do you produce on average per day/week/harvest/year?
      4. When do you produce your agricultural waste (e.g. harvest season)?
      5. Do the crops you grow vary based on the season?
      6. Would you be willing to bring your agricultural waste to some drop off location, or would you only be willing to sell it if it was picked up from your farm?
      7. Where does most of your agricultural waste end up if you have any?
      8. Is there a certain crop that results in more waste or unused products?
      9. What parts of each crop are left over/not used including corn, coconuts, coffee beans, and sugar cane?
      10. How do you feel about using biodegradable packaging at restaurants?
   3. Restaurants (or other businesses that use single-use packaging) 
      1. Does it matter much how eco-friendly your packaging is?
      2. How much do you pay for your packaging?
      3. Would you be willing to pay a little more for a biodegradable packaging?
      4. Would you feel differently about locally sourced bioplastic packaging versus outsourced biodegradable packaging?
      5. How has your restaurant been impacted by the governmental bans on plastic packaging?
      6. What changes have you made recently regarding the packaging and utensils you use?
      7. What is the customer’s frequent reaction to biodegradable packaging?
      8. What types of utensils or packaging does your restaurant use (to-go box, bowl, plate, spoon)?
      9. Do you care more about the quality or cost of the packaging?
      10. Where do you currently buy your packaging materials from?

 

       2. Identify all of the key customers for your product/service/creation/solution. List specific ways that you will ensure                   that your product will meet their aspirational, emotional, and functional needs and desires.

1. 1. Packaging manufacturers
      1. Our bioplastic will allow manufacturers to not need to change up too much of their process to switch to a biodegradable material
      2. Biodegradable alternative to work around the single-use plastic bans in big cities
      3. Will be cost-competitive and not cost much more than regular plastic
      4. May ease the guilt of their contribution to the ginormous amount of plastic waste in the ocean and their effect on climate change
   2. Business owners
      1. Can be something to market: “our products use biodegradable packaging!”
      2. Cost-competitive
      3. A solution to single-use plastic bans reducing the use of plastic
   3. People who use packaged products
      1. Will still provide a single-use packaging
      2. Will not change much or at all how they use their products
      3. Will maybe make them feel better about using biodegradable stuff
      4. Can compost after use

 

     3. Articulate your value propositions for each of your customer segments (using the format presented in class).

1. 1. Packaging manufacturers – Repurpose for a better future
      1. This value proposition statement tells packaging manufactures that the biopellets we will be selling them were made completely out of excess agricultural waste. It also sends the message that they are playing a crucial role in positively helping the environment. 
   2. Business Owners – Serve your customers sustainably
      1. This value proposition statement tells business owners that the packaging is a more sustainable and healthier option for the environment. 
   3. People who use packaged products – Enjoy, Guilt Free
      1. This value proposition statement emphasizes that our packaging is biodegradable and will not leave as much impact on the environment.

 

     4. What are the technological, social, economic, and political trends that will impact (help or hurt) your ventures?

1. 1. The Philippines government is also working to reduce their plastic pollution and has tried to implement several plastic bans in big cities.
   2. Technology is improving, and we are closer to finding solutions for reducing single-use plastic pollution
   3. The Philippines loses millions of dollars per year in potential market value from mismanaged plastic waste

 

     5. What is the Total Available Market and Total Addressable Market for your product or service?

1. 1. For our product, the total available market is all consumers of single-use plastic packaging in the Philippines Since most of the country used single-use, the total available market is close to 113 million people. We want to first implement our product in Manila, and according to an article from breakfreefromplastic.org, 7/10 Filipinos favor a national single-use plastic ban. Thus, it can be assumed that about 7/10 of the population in Manila would be interested in our product, so about 1.25 million people. 

1. Give three examples of something very interesting you learned from a friend that was a completely alien concept to you.
   1. I learned from a friend that some animal farming cooperations will spray pig feces onto their land as fertilizer. The issue is that these farms are usually located near low income families who cannot afford to move. This exposes them to a lot of bacteria and put them at a great risk for diseases and illnesses.
   2. I learned from a friend that in some cultures arranged marriages are the norm, where your parents will set you up with someone. This usually happens between ages of 18 to 23.
   3. I learned from a friend that although there is not much research on it yet, there may be a link between telomere length and aging. There is some evidence that shows there is a correlation between activities that prevent disease and that increase telomere length.
2. List ten things that make you feel human.
   1. Running makes me feel human
   2. Talking to friends makes me feel human
   3. Laughing makes me feel human
   4. Crying makes me feel human
   5. Achieving goals makes me feel human
   6. Solving problems makes me feel human
   7. Working with others makes me feel human
   8. Spending time with my family makes me feel human
   9. Experiencing different sensations (temperature/texture) makes me feel human
   10. Breathing makes me feel human
3. Articulate your philosophy of engagement as it pertains to your work with the Impact Fellowship. Specifically discuss:
   1. Why should I engage?
      1. I should engage in this project because it is working towards helping the environment, which is something I am passionate about. I have the time and recourses available to help, so there is no reason that I shouldn’t. Working on this project will be mutually beneficial because I hope to learn something, which also contributing good to the world.
   2. How must I engage?
      1. I will engage with this project by first doing my own research. I will need to do a lot of reading to get caught up on everything I should know in order to be productive. I will then dedicate time in the lab to work on creating a bioplastic pellet. This will include creating lab plans and carrying them out. I will then need to work on creating partnership with those in the Philippines so that we can implement the production of the bio pellet there.
   3. With whom must I engage?
      1. The most important people I will need to engage with will be my teammates. It is by working with them that will make the project successful. We will need to collaborate in the lab and while completing field work, and pool all of our knowledge. I will also need to engage with our stakeholders in the Philippines. We will need to cooperate with them in order to successfully create a system in the Philippines that creates the biodegradable packaging out of agricultural waste.
   4. What kinds of challenges, opportunities, and approaches should I care about?
      1. There will be many challenges and opportunities that arise throughout the project. The challenges that I should be most concerned with would be any ones that would drastically halt or diminish the progress of the project. We will address these challenges as a team by discussing the issue and collaborating on a solution. We will look into all of the opportunities presented to us throughout the duration of the project, but obviously it is not possible to pursue them all so we will have to consider which will be the most beneficial. Some of these opportunities may include grants or the chance to present our findings at a conference.
   5. How might I uphold the core principles of ethical engagement that were discussed in class?
      1. I will make sure to uphold the principals of ethical engagement by making sure that the work we are doing is actually wanted. We want to avoid the situation where we think we are helping, but in actuality our assistance is not wanted. One concern in regards to this is that agricultural waste is often already used by farmers for other purposes, such as fertilizer. We will have to make sure that if we buy waste from farmers that they truly do not need it at all, and that we are not just depriving them of a useful resource.
   6. What might my epitaph read?
      1. I would want my epitaph to be ‘kindness is your strongest superpower.’

    1. Does the project require IRB approvals?

No, our project will develop a prototype using lab work with no need for data from human subjects. A possible situation where we would need IRB approval would be if we wanted to conduct surveys to gauge interest or get other feedback for our product in the Philippines. These surveys would most likely be occurring at a later stage in the project. However, they are more likely to be minimal risk research and we can try to apply for expedited or exempt approval.

2. Based on your life experience, skills and interests, what would a design process that is both uniquely yours and effective look like? 

1. Define the problem
2. Research what biowaste we want to use /l earn more about the problem
3. Brainstorming a solution
4. Develop and test prototype
5. Implement the prototype in country
6. Get feedback from fieldwork in country
7. Reevaluate / make modifications if necessary

3. Identify your three most important stakeholders and list five UNIQUE attributes for each one of them.

Primary stakeholder: plastic packaging manufacturers

1. Probably a company
2. Cares about the cost of the bio-pellets 
3. Will have access to factories/more resources than individual people
4. Will need to use bioplastic pellets in bulk
5. Need to cooperate with farmers on transporting the agricultural waste

A secondary stakeholder: store owners using plastic containers

1. Cares about cost of packaging 
2. Cares about how using eco-friendly packaging will reflect on their reputation and advertisement
3. May need to buy packaging in bulk, depending on how big the business is
4. Business owners, likely more economically stable
5. Wants to provide to the community easily and efficiently and changing up the packaging may have an effect on customers

A tertiary stakeholder: farmers

1. May want to keep their agricultural waste for various reasons, such as using it as fertilizer
2. Would care about profit from selling agricultural waste
3. From more rural areas
4. Do not care as much about what the waste is turned into after they sell it to us
5. May be more difficult to form partnerships with without a translator or other cultural link

Other stakeholder: individual people using plastic containers

1. Likely not buying directly from manufacturers
2. Need to know how to dispose of the bioplastic product
3. Many who use plastic packaging don’t typically give a second thought on using them
4. Cares how durable the bioplastic is (they do not want it to start to decompose while they are still using it) 
5. May not have as much information on the process of creating the plastics

4. Identify three ways in which you will validate your project concept, technology, usability, and business model.

Project concept validation: 

• We can survey our target demographics to understand whether they are willing to accept/use our product.
• Does our project solve a relevant problem? Whether we make an impact or not is vital for our project.
• Do the right people understand our project concept? If our stakeholders, manufacturers, or other people we team up with believe in our project then there is a good chance our project concept is on the right track.

Project technology validation: 

• Do we have reliable supply chains to provide us with materials for our project, most importantly a steady supply of agricultural waste.
• Do we know how to make our bioplastic containers or bioplastic pellets? If we have no clue how to make our product later in its development then we are behind.
• Is there a cheaper way to create our product? Plastic containers are already cheap and reliable, so we need a competitive price to convince people to switch from regular plastic to bioplastic. 

Project usability validation: 

• How easy is it to manufacture and obtain our product? If it is too difficult then people will stick with ordinary plastics.
• How does our bioplastic compare with plastic containers on the market currently?
• Is our product going to be easily accessible to those who seek it out?

Project business model validation: 

• Does our project solve a relevant issue and how will it go about that.
• Is our business sustainable and scalable?
• What are the advantages compared to other products on the market?

Outcomes for Spring 2024

Project Goals (Responsibilities)

1.  Develop a consistent and scalable process of making biodegradable pellets.
2. Talk to organizations in the Philippines for a potential collaboration
3.  Decide what other types of waste we will tackle
4.  Develop a business model (Who we will work with / where we will get the crops from / how the project can be sustainable)
5.  Develop a concrete Summer plan

Research Goals (Responsibilities)

1.  Create a pellet or film prototype
2.  Have a final draft of our research paper
3.  Apply for funding grants

Resources Needed

• Lab space
• Grants for lab materials

 

Outcomes for Summer 2024 (MTSE + Fieldwork)

Project Goals (Responsibilities)

1.  Gauge interest of manufacturing companies with our pellet prototype
2.  Establish partnership with farm association
3.  Finalize our business model
4.  Gathering more information on bioplastic lab procedures to emulate
5. Continue to edit research paper

Research Goals (Responsibilities)

1.  Acquire corn (and other agricultural) waste?
2.  Acquire other bioplastic prototypes
3.  Continue to work towards a solid prototype/product of our own (?)

Resources Needed

• Corn (or other) waste for comparison
• Best version of pellet we are able to make

 

Outcomes for Fall 2024

Project Goals (Responsibilities)

1.  Attend networking conferences to discuss our research
2.  Continue relations with partnered organizations in the Philippines
3.  Work on a master document to pass on to the next team
4.  Recruiting new team members
5.  Establishing future goals

Research Goals (Responsibilities)

1.  Publish our research paper
2.  Continue developing our prototype

Resources Needed

• Lab space & materials
• Peer reviewer 
• Information we gathered from field work

Prompt #1: What sustainable development goal does the project target? What might be reasonable indicators for those SDGs?

The main sustainable development goal that our project will target is contributing to sustainable cities and communities. We strive to work towards this by repurposing agricultural waste as bio plastic. If we are successful in this, it will contribute to the long term sustainability of each community. We can measure the success of this goal by analyzing the municipal solid waste collected, and how it is used. The less waste that is just thrown in a landfill, will indicate higher success of our project.

Our second goal is to popularize the responsible consumption and production of goods. We hope to achieve this by providing an easily accessible and eco-conscious substitute to traditional plastics. We could measure this through policy changes in the Philippines. What we hope to see is a trend towards banning plastic, and encouraging compostable ‘plastic’ options. Another indicator of our project’s success will be researching domestic material consumption. We hope that there will be a decrease in restaurants’ use of plastic take-out boxes, utensils, ect.

The last sustainable development goal we hope to impact is the effort towards climate change. Some estimates show bioplastic may produce 25% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional plastics. Although this is a difficult goal to measure results, we could look at overall greenhouse gas emission trends. Not to say that our project alone would have any noticeable effect on these statistics, but in order for change to occur everyone needs to make some effort. We hope our project can make its contribution to the global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the effects of climate change.

Prompt #2: Crystallize the larger challenge the venture seeks to address, the specific problems being targeted, and the kinds of opportunities we hope to leverage.

With the Philippines being one of the leading contributors to plastic waste, the larger challenge our venture seeks to address is to eventually completely eliminate the use of unnecessary plastic and plastic waste to create better environments for all life. A secondary effect/by-product of us acting on this challenge can be a stepping stone towards aiding in climate change, since the switch from plastics will have an effect on the production of pollution. The specific problem in the Philippines we are targeting is the large waste of food products and high amounts of plastic waste from single use food packaging. Not only does this occur in the Philippines but the whole world. We hope to obtain the agricultural waste, specifically corn husks and any other crop waste we are currently researching, from local farmers or other sources. The crops we are currently researching that have potential to manufacture biodegradable packaging are corn and risk husks, banana leaves, and coffee grounds. We hope to connect the problem of high food waste to the high plastic production issue. Choosing food products that are highly wasted in the Philippines, we may be able to develop biodegradable pellets/packaging from them.

Prompt #3: Identify the two most important social, economic, and environmental bottom lines that matter to the project.

• Social- 
  • Waste management education: The Philippines produces over ⅓ of all oceanic plastic waste in the world. If we can help educate them on more sustainable practices then that can help aid the focus of our project.
  • Community collaboration: Since our project depends on our sources of corn husk (or other agricultural waste) and an organization to help build our bioplastic pellets, collaboration is key. 
• Economic
  • Cost effectiveness: Create biodegradable pellets at a competitive price compared to traditional plastic pellets.
  • Revenue Growth: Have a practice profitable enough for it to continue growing when we are not in the country. Although our focus of this project is not to be profitable, making revenue is necessary for us to grow and have a greater impact.
• Environmental
  • Plastic pollution reduction: Our goal is to reduce single-use plastic food containers in Manila. A lot of this waste can end up in the ocean which is a problem in the Philippines.
  • Pellet production sustainability: Create sustainable and scalable biodegradable pellets from agricultural waste. A repeatable and consistent process of creating these pellets is necessary for it to scale upwards.

Prompt #4: Describe ten cultural factors that might impact the project at various phases in its lifecycle.

1. Agricultural waste is already used for other things, such as fertilizer. We will have to make sure that we are not depriving farmers of any materials that they need.
2. What is the cost of switching to new products and who will pay it?
3. There are currently some environmental policies in place in the Philippines that are aimed at restricting plastic waste. We may be able to use this to our advantage.
4. It may be difficult to get groups or individuals to work with us because of lack of trust, so it may be helpful to have local partners that can bring us together.
5. There may be cultural differences between people we work with, so we will have to be patient and adaptable.
6. When is it socially acceptable to meet with people for business?
7. Wealth disparity is a major issue in the Philippines. We will want to make sure our product is easily accessible to all, and does not extenuate this wealth disparity in any way.
8. Language barriers could make it difficult to communicate with potential partners.
9. How will we address and interact with potential partners?
10. How will we travel? Some options are jeepneys (a form of public transportation), walking, or Grab (similar to Uber)

I was motivated to apply to be a global social impact fellow because of my interest in research. What specifically caught my eye about this program was the fact that you are not just doing busy work. We will be performing research and working towards making a real impact. There is a broad goal, and it is the group’s responsibility to positively contribute to this goal. My group’s project focuses on the plastic issue, specifically looking at the Philippines. Our goal is to create some form of biodegradable packaging, that can be used in place of plastic. We are looking to derive this from corn husk, but are still unsure of what product we are looking to make. Some possibilities would be “plastic” pellets that manufactures can use to make into their own utensil, or maybe we press the material into plates or to-go containers ourselves.

This topic of study also interested me because I am planning to major in bioengineering. I assume that we will need to look into the bio-components of the corn husk to be able to determine how best to manufacture it into a plastic replica. We will need to do a lot of lab research this semester if we are going to have a product ready by the summer. I look forward to this because I hope to continue research in the future. I will be able to learn the basics of working in the lab, and gain experience that will help me with future projects. Although I decided on pursuing a degree in bioengineering, I was initially interested in environmental engineering. I switched to bioengineering with the intent of still incorporating sustainable practices into my work. This projects perfectly suits my interests because it focuses on how biomaterials can be used to advance efforts to protect the environment.

Assignment Question: What are possible solutions to lack of eyeglasses in developing countries?

One of the major difficulties when it comes to eye care is that people’s prescriptions are contently changing, as their eye sight deteriorates. The cost to frequently buy new glasses must add up. For some, improving their prescription every few months may not be a top priority. One potential solution would be if we could develop thin strip of magnifying material that customers could add onto their glasses as they feel they need a stronger prescription. These could be magnetic so that the strips could be added or removed. I feel like this would make the glasses more versatile as multiple people could use them. The only issue is a magnetic strip sounds like it might end up being pretty expensive. A likely cheaper option would be to just have the strips be sticky and attach to the current lens. Either way customers would only need to invest in one pair of eye glasses, and would be able to strengthen their prescription without purchasing new glasses, which would likely save money if the strips are able to be made cheaply enough.

One issue with this plan would be if people are not able to buy the base eye wear frame. Many countries are highly consumeristic and buy more than they need. This results in much waste. In the U.S for example, we often discard our old glasses, even if they would still be fully functional for someone else. It may be possible create a sharing system, where old eyeglass frames are sent to a center where they are provided for free or at a low cost. In theory, people would be able to take glasses from the center, and exchange them once a heavier prescription is needed. This would kill two birds with one stone by improving access to eyewear while also limiting waste that ends up in land fills. One issue with this plan is that the cost to transports these glasses over seas would be high, and someone needs to fund it. Another issue is this plan is built on a trust system, and relying on other people’s generosity. People in consumeristic countries would need to take the time to drop there old eyeglasses of at a collection center instead of just tossing them in the trash can. Additionally, once the glasses are in country they are also meant to be shared. This means that people would need to only take what they really need, and it would also help if they returned the glasses once they got ones with a better prescription. There could be a monetary incentive put in place to return the glasses, but this would also increase the overall cost of the project.