23 SDG 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure – Erro y Eugui

Group Reflection

The story we developed focused around our company Erro y Eugui and their work towards the construction of passive houses in their local community of Pamplona. This innovation primarily targeted SDG #9 Industry, Innovation and infrastructure. Before beginning many of us did not know what passive houses were. Passive houses are energy efficient designs that look towards sustainability for the future. Erro y Eugui achieves this by constructing the homes out of wood.

As a group we felt the option to support a sustainable initiative around infrastructure was common ground for us culturally. Although our group hails from 3 different countries the ability to relate to efficient energy consuming houses gave us an understanding for the others values. We quickly found each group member has a passion for making a better tomorrow. Using housing as a conduit we found a drive for each individual to sustainably benefit society.

Each member’s unique strength and perspective contributed to the richness of our project within our collaborative framework. Similarly to Erro y Eugui, we discovered a shared poison for making positive impact on society as we delved into the complexities of passive house construction and its alignment with Sustainable Development Goal #9.

When doing this project, we have learned that with respect and desire to work we are all capable of reaching a satisfying conclusion. We have also had the opportunity to interact with and learn from each other’s teaching methodologies. This will allow us to apply new cultural, linguistic, academic and social horizons. When it came to distributing the work, there has been no problem. We met every Friday at the same time of the international introduction zoom meeting. We thought this would be the easiest because we were all able to attend the original meeting. We made our own zoom calls to talk about what the week’s task was, what conclusions we had drawn from the previous week and we divided ourselves into pairs to do it.
What was sometimes a problem was communication. The biggest difficulty for us was communication outside of our usual group meeting time because of time zones. But in general, we have all gotten along very well when it came to working since we all showed interest in making the project the best possible.

Despite the challenges of different time zones, We demonstrated exceptional flexibility and dedication. We recognized the value of effective communication and established a regular Friday zoom meeting. This regular meeting time became a cornerstone of our collaboration, providing a structured platform for us to discuss weekly assignments, share conclusions from previous discussion, and assign responsibilities to pairs.

We not only solidified our commitment to the project by overcoming the challenges of time zones and communication, but we also laid the groundwork for trust and respect. This foundation proved invaluable in resolving any issues that arose, cultivating a collaborative spirit that propelled us toward our common goal. We learned as a team that with our open communication, mutual respect, and a shared vision, we could navigate challenges and create meaningful, long term solutions. Our collective commitment to this project not only strengthened our bonds, but also demonstrated the potential of international collaboration in addressing global challenges.

Individual Reflections

Alessandro: As a member of an international team for the first time, one of the first things I noticed was the difficulty in time zones. With Canadians, Indonesians and Spanish members comprising the group the time zones apart were roughly 8 hours. This meant while some members were waking up, the others were just starting their evening, and the last set heading to bed. This made communications with all members at once a strict 1-2 hour window. Despite this pain point I still feel I was able to provide quality work to my group and communicate with a high degree of cultural respect. One contribution I feel was particularly helpful was in providing thought provoking and relevant interview questions for our company Erro y Eugui. These interview questions went on to help us construct a more SDG aware approach in our project. Going into potential future international projects I now feel more confident in interacting with those across the globe. Specifically, I found carrying out the human virtue of empathy allowed me to better connect with and understand my group members. Empathy shows us that even if our cultures are different we are all still human.

Isabel: I am Isabel Gimeno, a second year student at the University of Navarra and during these months I have had the opportunity to work with two students from Canada and two from Indonesia. First of all, it has been an unforgettable experience and I would like to thank them and comment on the things I have learned. One of the things I have learned, which I think is the most important, is that despite the cultural difference between countries, there has not been any problem because with respect and willingness to work everything goes well and we are able to understand each other perfectly. I would also like to say that I felt very comfortable working with them because we were always all in the flames and I feel that we all worked in equal measure. I have to say that the only problem we have had is the time difference because it made communication difficult. Sometimes it was a hassle to have a conversation, especially on days close to delivery, as everyone worked according to their own time zone. But in spite of that we all made an effort and reached an agreement.
Finally I would like to thank my colleagues and the universities for giving us the opportunity to learn and enjoy this experience.

Jayden: Hello my name is Jayden from the University of Guelph and this project with aim2flourish has been an experience I will never forget as I was able to work with people all around the world and gain different perspectives of people who attend university and like minded people. Like everyone else I would say that the time zone was quite difficult to get around as some people are waking up in the morning during the time that others are about to go to sleep. Another thing was probably setting hard deadlines as a group as most things were laid back it was tricky to get a hold of members as for the time zoning. Besides that everything ran smoothly and learned a great deal about what sustainability really is and how it can be relevant to businesses like construction. Zoom calls were a great way of communication to have our team meetings and to set those team meetings up we used the platform Instagram to almost stay in touch with our group members throughout the week to ask each other questions and answer any confusion that would come up while conducting our research.
Overall this project was a great new experience to me and would recommend any business student to take this class.

Alvaro: Hi I am Alvaro Gil Glaria and this is my personal reflection about the project. To begin with I would like to thank the organization of this exciting project for the possibility that they have given us to be able to work with partners from other countries. This experience has given us many good moments as well as stressful moments, however we have been able to go through them. The main issue I have found working with group mates from other countries is the time zone. Without doubt it has been the biggest problem I have encountered when it comes to organizing meetings and answering messages. This leads to a communication problem because the doubts of each of the members of the group could not be solved and it delayed the work a lot. While this may have slowed down the work, the great collaboration of everyone in the group and the motivation we had to do a good project, has covered up other possible problems such as cultural differences. Before starting the project, I had a feeling of uncertainty because I didn’t know what kind of problems I was going to face and how we were going to work and if I was going to feel familiar or not. Now, I can say that any feeling of uncertainty that I had before starting, was eliminated from the first meeting we had, thanks to the trust that each one of us placed in our partners.
So, I can conclude that the cultural differences and the way of working has not been a problem for me, on the contrary it has helped me to improve my way of working and collaborating.

Mustajab: Hi, I’m Mustajab Gunawan from IPMI International Business School and i want to share my experience for the whole aim2flourish project. As a team member, I enjoyed the experiential activity as a team member. Managing cross-cultural dynamics and time zones were difficult, but our structured communication and commitment facilitated a successful virtual collaboration. Personally, I struggled with fluency and shyness in English, and late night meetings were difficult. Despite this, the team’s dedication and my commitment to the project won out, resulting in a positive and memorable experience. Overall, this experience has taught me a lot about navigating different points of view, overcoming language barriers, and dealing with time zone differences. Positive outcome and effective collaboration in addressing complex issues. Participating in the experiential activity was a rewarding journey that exposed me to the challenges of managing cross-cultural dynamics and navigating time zones. Despite the challenges, our commitment to structured communication was critical to the success of our virtual collaboration. It was difficult for me to deal with my English fluency and shyness during late night meetings. However the team’s unwavering dedication and my wavering commitment resulted in a successful and memorable outcome. This experience significantly improved my ability to deal with diverse viewpoints, overcome language barriers, and efficiently address complex issues through collaborative efforts.