The winning team. Photo by Mark Bialek, Ross School of Business
PUTTING ‘A LOT OF AUTONOMY AND POWER INTO THE HANDS’ OF REFUGEES THROUGH GARDENS
“The more research we did, the more we realized the U.N.’s budget was spread very, very thin,” says fellow team member and classmate, Matthew Lee. “And the distribution of food in these camps was not great.”
Lee spent his childhood hopping to all the world’s “oil hotspots” with his father, who worked for Exxon Mobil. The Malaysian-native lived in South Korea, Texas, and Canada before deciding on the Ann Arbor campus. Lee, who says growing up around a business-minded father helped him realize the importance of business to solve problems said the team “wanted to put a lot of autonomy and power into the hands of these refugees by having them have their own gardens.”
THE MULTI-LEVEL GARDENING STRATEGY
So the team researched similar farming strategies.
“We found a lot of great urban farming techniques and refugee camps are so crowded, we thought we could use a transition of the same techniques,” Norden explains. “One of the forms of urban farming was multi-level gardening.”
The form of gardening is common amongst urban foodies and rebounding blighted urban neighborhoods, alike. Specifically for the Ross team, they proposed puncturing large, hollow oil drums with holes, filling them with dirt and growing food out of the top and the holes scattered around the sides.
“Two of the major constraints of growing food in a refugee camp are land and water,” Norden says. “You can really optimize food with the vertical garden.”
TAKING THE CLASSROOM TO THE REAL WORLD
The idea of arming Syrian refugees with multi-level urban farming techniques and supplies was good enough to wow the panel for the win. Lee points to the team’s ability to tell a specific and compelling story as the key ito notching the victory. “To push any initiative, you need to have a very powerful narrative,” he claims, reflecting on the presentation in front of panelists.
For Norden, the fun was in proving to his professors, he has indeed been paying attention in their classes and applying those lessons in the real world. “We were using a lot of things we learned in class—things you don’t expect to take out of the classroom,” Norden says. “It was actually fun to see the things we listened to in lecture come to life in an action-based way.”
Not coincidently, that’s exactly what Thornhill says is the purpose of this particular piece of the newfangled curriculum. “It’s a collaboration between the Zell Lurie Institute and the core BBA faculty,” Thornhill insists. “From a pedagogical perspective, it’s integrating the approach to a business case. It’s not just a business law issue or a management perspective. It’s a complete business look at an unsolved problem.”
‘IT REALLY AMPED UP THE BRAIN POWER OF THE STUDENTS’
For Thornhill, the inaugural competition was just as much a logistical success as a curricular one. “I was thrilled with the way it all turned out,” he says. “It was a pretty ambitious undertaking with 500 students above.”
“My hope is by getting the juniors involved in entrepreneurship and the Zell Lurie Institute while they have a year still in school will lead to more innovation and opportunity in placing students in startups,” Thornhill continues. “This type of program is going to plant the seed earlier in these students. Hopefully we see that grow into even more entrepreneurial interest in their final year.”
Norden sees it trending that way.
“It really amped up the brain power of the students,” Norden claims. “It was pretty inspiring to see what happens when you really motivate students—you get 100 ideas in a couple days.
“This entrepreneurial culture and drive for social impact is growing at Ross and is more of a viable option for students coming out of undergrad now.”
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