8 SDG 4 Quality Education – Blink learning

Group Reflection

We were amazed to learn from BlinkLearning. Through an interview we conducted, the founder, Gonzalo Baranda, explained to us lots of interesting details and information such as how the innovation came to be or what his future plans with the company are. In this age of digital advancement, BlinkLearning strives to improve the quality of education all across the world. We believe this endeavour holds significance as this program also aligns with the UN goals, specially the three UN Goals we stressed: the 4th, 15th and 17th. Furthermore, BlinkLearning is offered to a wide range of students from elementary to college, aiding all students no matter their level of study. In fact, mostly all these students make up the 3.5 million active users Blinklearning currently has.

We chose BlinkLearning for AIM2Flourish due to its remarkable innovation and the positive impact it has on society and the environment. While we recognise numerous other stories with equally marvelous ideas, we dont view this as a competition to determine superiority. Instead, we perceive it as an opportunity for all the people that can benefit from the products as they achieve a higher quality of education since we feel that education can really change lives and the world.

In fact education is a crucial element for the development of a country and more in particular it affects each person that receives the education. As it has been mentioned, we really think that education can change the life of a person. However the access to education for everyone in the world is a huge problem even though everybody has the human right to receive it. In fact 1 of every 5 children worldwide, do not go to school nor receive education. Hence, to start fighting this urgency Blinklearning’s main objective is increasing the quality of the education given and also expands to countries where education quality might lack.

Moreover, in a world struggling with paper waste concerns, BlinkLearning contributes to Earth’s preservation by minimizing paper waste globally. We commend the company for promoting sustainability, not only for the environment, but for the benefit of the public as well. The platform motivates us to incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals into our current and future endeavours.

However, we don’t really have knowledge related to the impact that the energy consumed when using the digitized textbook has, as maybe it is less than the impact that deforestation has. Regarding the 17th UN goal, it could be a good idea to have knowledge of objective data, that isn’t only related to the number of editorials Blinklearning works with.

The company in the majority of cases meets our assumptions of what the business does. Nonetheless, we highlight our amazement with the internal organization of the company as they perform many activities such as getting in contact with editorials, with schools or even digitizing books that are in paper format, that in the background require a perfect and efficient communication between employees and directors. We see this internal structure as an exemplary organization we can apply in the future companies we, as future potential business people, will create.
During this project, we became even more conscious of the importance of education and that taking care of the environment is essential and urgent for the world. These definitely are also important points we will apply in our future businesses. However, we did not only learn things we will apply in the future from the company. We also gained many communicative and leadership enriching skills from interacting with our international team that we were assigned to create this Aim2Flourish story.

Each of our members treated one another with respect and everyone’s ideas and suggestions were heard and appreciated, making this a very positive team to be a part of. We met online via zoom each week to break up the work between each of our teammates. We generally splitted the work and divided it into three ‘sub teams’ where two members of each different university worked together on a section. This way of breaking up work was easy and efficient, especially as the ‘sub teams’ consisted of teammates in the same time zones; as this time difference was our main challenge during this project. Since we have team members in Canada, Spain and Indonesia, it was quite difficult to find a time where everyone was free to meet. Despite this, each member of the group was excellent at communicating throughout the process of writing our story, making writing the story a seamless experience. We managed to overcome the hurdle of time differences and were able to successfully meet each week to discuss and analyze our progress and decide how to split up the work.

Moreover, what we had learned in our course helped us to engage and motivate our team. We utilized some skills we learnt such as leadership, teamwork, and most importantly, communication. In addition, the background knowledge aided our work tremendously, as we were able to apply theories and concepts with ease. Being taught in our classes what both good and bad corporate social responsibility looks like, we were confident in our selection of Blinklearning to write our story about, as this is a company which helps society through its innovation.

In conclusion, this experience allowed each of us an insight into a new culture and way of life. We got to know how businesses operate in an international context through our initial meeting where we each shared our story ideas. For example, Katie, Oscar, Zahwa and Florenci, who are our teammates not native form spain, had the chance to work with a Spanish multinational company. Definitely thanks to this COIL activity we all learnt various techniques and unique innovations which have broadened our own minds and ideas and will thoroughly help us when we move from university into the workplace. We are really grateful for this unique opportunity we had that made us grow as students, humans and future professionals.

Individual Reflections

Katie: Being a part of this international group has been an educational and enlightening experience. I have really enjoyed getting to know each of the team members and learning more about their different cultures and ways of business operations. Being on exchange from Scotland to Canada, I feel I have even gained a better understanding of Canadian businesses and different innovations through the initial research part of this project. I think this project has been a great experience, and has broadened my understanding and knowledge of conducting a business. The course I study at home is international business with marketing, and so I am grateful for this experience to have learnt more about international organisations. I hope that the knowledge I have gained will help me throughout the remainder of my university career and I will take the knowledge and skills I have learnt from this experience with me when I enter the workplace.

Oscar: I have found the AIM2Flourish project with the international group to be an interesting and truly transformative experience. By taking a look at each of our initial companies, I really gained a deep insight into how firms can implement a variety of different methods into improving its sustainability model, matching the sustainable development goals and leaving a positive impact on the planet. Working in groups with students from around the world also allowed us to take on the project using different perspectives. Although it had its difficulty with finding a time that suited everyone for weekly calls due to varying time zones, the different opinions definitely made it worthwhile and beneficial to the project and the ultimate goal. We carefully considered each of our six companies and decided on which would be best suited for an AIM2Flourish story. We collectively decided on BlinkLearning which is a wonderful company and is doing so much to help the planet by moving education to a digital format rather than on paper. On a final note, I can say that I learned so much through this project and team and will ensure to take the knowledge I have gained from it forward in life.

Florenci: My impression during the Aim2flourish Coil was that I was very happy to be able to study with friends from Canada and Spain. We collaborated well with each other so that we were able to complete the Aim2flourish task. We were all involved in working on this task, even though we had different times, we were able to carry out the same tasks. given by the Lecturer. We were all involved positively, and when working on this assignment we had a very good impression where we could give each other positive input and provide positive energy. Effective Collaboration where this collaboration is positive so that it produces good values, ideas -creative ideas and innovative solutions. In this Group Assignment, all Group Members are actively involved according to their respective duties in completing this Assignment.Fair distribution of tasks so that all group members do not feel burdened but can complete each part of the work so that the task is completed on time.

Zahwa: I was very anxious when I heard about this COIL, not because I hate meeting new people, it’s because I’m not good at talking especially strangers, I was very nervous at that time. Luckily, the people that I met are very kind and understanding. They like to ask about my opinion and also very informative. I think this COIL is a door for me to have a new experience meeting with people around the world. It makes me understand that the time differences could be very tiring, but it also makes me to not be an egoist person. We didn’t get to share about culture differences, hobbies and anything outside the COIL topic, which is understandable since we are very busy with college life, etc. But, if there’s an opportunity, I really like to know more about them. I know I have to say this in person but, I want to thank the lecturers and students who worked hard for this project. You guys are amazing!

Maria de las Mercedes: First of all I’m very grateful for this opportunity that my course’s teacher Isabel Rodriguez gave me. It was a unique and one of the most enriching activities I have had during my second year as a University of Navarra business student. I strongly think that this activity that at first worried me, ended up as one academic experience that definitely contributed to my human and academic growth. When I first heard of this activity I got a little bit anxious since I did not know how an international team with five other students from all over the world would be able to coordinate on doing this project successfully. However, it completely surprised me how it ended up working so well. Thankfully I think me and my university partner were assigned a great group where mostly all teammates were very engaged in doing this activity the best way possible as I was wishing too. As a result of this we were all very punctual on doing our parts of the work, we were very respectful to each other, we even overcame the time zone big differences that seemed to be a great challenge and as a result we ended up doing a great Aim2Flourish story about Blinklearning. I really liked this activity and all the leadership and communicative skills it gave me by breaking through the cultural and language barriers.

Rosa: When this project was started I was really afraid. Everything was new and seemed to be really difficult, but as the weeks passed, the vision I had of the project became better. Having the opportunity to work with an international and virtual team has helped me to understand other cultures. At the beginning of the project I wasn’t as convinced as I am now about all the positive impact a team could have with completely different perspectives. In the past I thought that huge differences in perspectives could only cause trouble. However I had experienced that this idea was completely false. The cultural differences was something that I definitely noticed, nonetheless this is one of the factors that made the activity challenging at the same time as enrichment. During the project I learned to prepare meetings before actually having them. This showed me how efficient we could be in virtual reunions, since we would focus on what we actually had to talk about, instead of wasting time searching for what we had to do. Also, regarding this virtual meeting point, it also helped me develop and improve my skills with technology. Moreover, I think the most challenging part of the work was the different time zones. As this obligates us to plan meetings with anticipation, wait for other teammates to communicate with them, etc. In other words the flexibility we would have with all being from the same country was reduced. Notwithstanding, this challenge was definitely overcome and, on the contrary, it ended up as a fantastic result. Finally, I really want to thank Isabel Rodriguez, my teacher, for giving me this opportunity. Participating in the Aim2Flourish activity is an experience that I will never forget and from which I have learned, not only about theoretical information, but also about real life.