Six student teams attacking problems ranging from sustainable culture growth in Amazon to subsidize music lessons in Ithaca received $ 22,500 in this year Great challenges Impact CompetitionApril 17 at Warren Hall.
The student team of 10 members who worked with Siendo Naturalza, a Peruvian learning center dedicated to the restoration of the Amazon Rainforest, won the first prize of $ 10,000 during this year’s competition. During the center visit during the spring holidays, the students designed a strategy to help the organization regenerate land and support local farmers: turmeric growing to produce clashes.
“We want to use turmeric as a vehicle to transmit a message that it has very powerful and environmental and economic advantages,” said Grace Lin, junior of the Dyson school and member of the Siendo Naturalza team. “Environment, this helps farmers improve their land and improve their yield of crops, but also economically, there is a market for this.”
Each team used their business and consultation skills to work with a project sponsor and have a significant impact on societal problems affecting local, regional, national and international communities as part of a Capstone project in the Great challenge program. The program involves a course sequence – each building a foundation for the next – Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.
Team members launched the project when he was enrolled in Social Impact Consulting in Amazon, a course taught by Trent PreszlerProfessor of practice at the Dyson school and director of the Dyson leadership program. The team plans to give its price to Siendo Naturalza to develop turmeric tea and sell it in Peru.
The project stood out due to the commitment of students with farmers and residents of Peru to test different solutions for their agricultural challenges, said the judges of the competition. “I think we estimated that it was something that could make a difference,” said David Lennox, Director of undergraduate studies at the Dyson school. “This could change the soil and could change the job, so this is the impact.”
The awards are almost tripled the amount of prizes given to the event of last year due to a new partnership with impact Competition, a national foundation supporting college cases which allow students to work with non -profit organizations to solve urgent social problems.
Beyond the awards, the Foundation also finances three summer courses so that the students of the Dyson school work in non-profit organizations that have collaborated with a student team in the competition.
“The partnership with Impact Competition allowed us to expand the impact of this event, both thanks to the generous donations which allow non -profit organizations to engage in this work and on the joint work which said that this event is focused on the impact of these projects,” said Sarah WolfoldsDeputy professor at the Dyson school and academic director of the major challenges program.
More than 90 students in 25 teams participated in the event, which was part of Better Business Week, a series of conferences and round tables held every spring at the Dyson school.
A student team that worked with Opus Ithaca, a music school located in the basement of the ST. Paul Methodist church in Ithaca, which scored around 500 students, won the second award of $ 5,000 in the competition. The students designed a multifaceted project that would help opus to collect funds so that it can offer more scholarships for music lessons.
During the presentation of the Opus Ithaca team, Georgia Bryant, an elderly person from the Dyson school, stressed that students who take music lessons obtain an average of 54 more points on SAT and have 17% of higher secondary grades. However, many students cannot afford the high cost of private music lessons.
“We are so grateful not only for the funds that these students have won for our school, but also for causing attention to this need in the community,” said Andi Merill, Managing Director and Founder of Opus Ithaca, after the award ceremony.
Two other finalists each won $ 2,500.
The Astrazeneca team has won for a project on the lack of diversity in patients and doctors involved in clinical trials. The team will donate its prize to the Student National Medical Association, a student organization that supports students in current and future under-represented medicine.
WHIRLPOOL Feel Good Fridge team won For a project that delivered more than 70, refrigerators gave food banks, homeless shelters, schools and churches in the New York center. The team will return its prize to Anabel’s Grocery, a non -profit grocery store managed by students who offer affordable food on the Cornell campus.
In addition to the four finalists, two teams received $ 1,250 each in the poster competition. The Sakhimfundo Youth Program team has described a project in South Africa which provides parascolary support to the students of the Alexandra’s black predominance canton. AVOCET HEALTH PARTNERS team presented a non -profit organization that strives to improve the quality of medical facilities in the penitentiary system. The money prize will be donated to a non -profit organization aligned with its mission.
The financing of the impact competition will allow the Dyson school to offer two major challenges each year, in the future. The Foundation is committed to giving a total of $ 60,000 for competitions each year over three years.
The program of big challenges of four years, a requirement for all students of the Dyson school, is an example of how students learn to “use their commercial skills to make the world better”, said Jinhua ZhaoThe dean David J. Nolan of the Dyson school. “They enter the real world, they become business leaders and the seeds that we have planted become trees and continue to grow.”
Sherrie Negrea is an independent writer of Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.