Introduction
Welcome to this book of student reflections on how businesses can aim for the UN Sustainable Development Goals through their innovations. This book is the result of a Collaborative Online International Learning activity that engaged students in experientially learning about the linkages between businesses and sustainability.
We had over 700 students participating from 7 institutions across the world with the engagement of 8 instructors/coaches. Students were divided into teams of 6 with 2 members in each team from a different institution. Their task was to find a ‘local’ business – local to wherever they where and then to interview a representative of the firm to discover how the business was involved in sustainability and how their efforts were aimed at achieving at least one of the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals.
After the interviews, student wrote narratives that were submitted on a global platform – AIM2Flourish.com (administered by Case Western University in Ohio, USA) for global awareness. The students then created posters summarizing their narratives and exhibited those posters in a virtual poster room in the internet metaverse to allow accessability by all students. Finally the students provided group and individual reflections of thier activities.
What you see and read here are those reflections in the students’ own words with minimal editing to preserve their authenticity. All students agreed to publishing these stories and if they did not, their reflections were removed and their identities were anonymized.
Enjoy reading the 100+ stories showing that indeed across the world businesses can be forces for good; and indeed students through the Collaborative Online International Learning platform can learn together and reflect together on these flourishing stories.
We acknowledge the support and guidance of the following instructors: Dr. Yang Hoong from the University of Guelph (Canada), Dr. Anjali Chaudhry from Dominican University (IL, USA), Dr. Luis Guedes and Dr. Gleriani Torres Carbone from FEI (Brazil), Dr. Liam Newton from the University of South Wales (UK), Dr. Isabel Rodriguez Tejedo from the Univesidad de Navarra (Spain), Prof. Ferdinand Niyimbanira from the University of Mpumalanga (South Africa), Dr. Sayeda Meharunisa from Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University (Saudi Arabia), Dr. Amelia Naim Indrajaya from the IPMI International Business School (Indonesia) and to my co-coach, a senior undergraduate student from the University of Guelph (Canada), Jacob Lohrenz.
Ruben Burga, Coach for COIL Fall 2024 & Instructor, University of Guelph, Canada
