103 Casava In Saudi Arabia

Team 36 Poster

Team Reflection

The draw that our group had to this company was due in no small part to how unique Ovapac is as a company. When first brought to your attention it is reasonable to be skeptical of the bags. If there was an environmentally sustainable way to make plastic bags, why is it not the status quo worldwide? That was a question we thought to ourselves as we begun the process and it was answered as we wrote the story for Aim2Flourish. The answer is quite simple, Ovapac as a company and cassava bags themselves are bot still in what could be called as an “infancy stage”. There is no question that their innovation is overall beneficial for the world but, as every company goes through, they are still figuring out administrative kinks that may slow down the process of the growth of their innovation. This is what we believe to be the greatest challenge that Ovapac faces, and the company appears to be overcoming it by getting their name out for the whole world to see. Even their contribution to Aim2Flourish will help the entire world understand the strength of their innovation. For example, our group members in Canada did not even know what cassava even was and were slightly sceptical about the effectiveness of the company but were convinced when hearing the interview, the efficiency of the product. Although it is easy for us to say, “our innovation is the best”, we do understand we have biases to have confidence in the innovation we chose. To prove that we would like to talk about the environmental effectiveness of the Ovapac innovation. The. Cassava bags positively impact all the Ps of the triple bottom line, people, planet, and profit. The people who consume the cassava bags are better off consuming them above the plastic alternatives because the Ovapac bags do not contaminate food carried within the bags with microplastics, which is becoming a growing concern for the health of consumers. The planet is much better off as the world uses 5 trillion plastic bags every year and every single bag takes about 1,000 years to deteriorate1. These figures mean that there is a lot of space taking up in our landfills of just single-use plastic bags. The introduction of the OvaBag would significantly reduce the amount of space bags take up in our landfills. The 5 trillion bags sold a year is also a reason the cassava bags are beneficial to the profit of Ovapac. If the people consuming the plastic bags were provided with a safer and healthier alternative then many of the 5 trillion plastic bags would instead contribute to the consumption of Ovapac bags, creating much needed profit for the company. As previously stated, the company is still getting its feet as an administration, but their innovation is strong enough to help Ovapac become a strong company to change the landscape of not just Saudi Arabia, but potentially the world. If we were successful business people many years down the line, it would be a no brainer to help assist Ovapac in spreading the word of this incredible plastic bag alternative because, while writing this story, we have been convinced that this is an incredible product. It covers many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the most notable being Goal 9, Goal 12, Goal 13, Goal 14, and Goal 15.

While completing this story we also learned much about ourselves. The main goal every one of us learned is the importance of clear communication and concise planning. There were many times where the time difference may have been an issue for our planning, and someone may have had to sacrifice their time to ensure that the story was completed as

smoothly as possible. A story of our group exemplifying that behaviour would be the planning of our meetings. Our team members from Saudi Arabia, Dalal and Najla, have only one day for their weekend and preferred to meet on those days and despite some members’ objections it was the best date for all of us to meet so Saturdays were typically the days we met every week. Our learnings in our courses gave us the necessary knowledge on sustainability and the importance for a product like the OvaBag. We made a point about interviewing with an emphasis on the sustainability of the company to provide further insight for our story. We typically tried to split every task up into threes, one for each duo of teammates from the same school. Then the two would split that work into two and come up with how to complete their tasks. This way of dividing the tasks up worked as most of the duos were friends and would know each other’s strengths. Sometimes, however, there would be a miscommunication between all our group members and some people may have accidentally completed someone else’s task. Slowing down the process of completing the story. One thing of note was the understanding that our group members showed to people who may have forgotten about a meeting or did not complete a task when the rest of the group already had completed it was truly admirable and this patience made the entire process of this Aim2Flourish journey much more enjoyable.

Individual Reflections

António Reflection 

My initial thoughts on this coil project were that it would be difficult and time-consuming, and I was concerned about my team. They were all from another nation, lived in a different time zone, and we all spoke different languages. The first meeting truly eased me tremendously since I noticed that all of my teammates spoke very good English and so we had good communication. We began to introduce ourselves, telling each other’s names, ages, and where we were from, ending up having a really lovely conversation. Next, we swapped contacts so that we could communicate throughout the whole assignment. Our first and the longest meeting was one in which we all just presented the companies that we had chosen to discuss for this project. For me, the best meeting was the second one, when we split our work evenly so that everyone had the same amount of work. Due to mine and my colleague’s midterms, the rest of the team was very flexible and understanding when we required extra time or were a little behind, yet, we were all able finish what needed to be done. All of the subsequent sessions went extremely well, we would discuss progress, split more work, and develop a strategy for this task. Overall, this project was a great experience, my team was always kind, and we had a lot of fun together despite having to meet via Zoom. The article was also easy to write, entertaining, and unlike anything else I’ve ever done.

Najla Reflection

My reflection on this Coil project, first when I heard about the project, I really found it complected and worried about how I would communicate with other people in a different country and how we would understand each other because maybe they do not understand the English language this is was my big fear when I heard about the project and after the first meeting to introduce us about the project and when I meet our member group we do not take a lot of time but was greet we introduce about each other and take phone number to make a group WhatsApp and the first meeting with our member group was good discussed companies and we choose a company but before that when I was searching to the found company was complicated not easy to talk with companies so we spend a lot of time to find a company and finally found one and other meetings was so hard to decide a day and time to do meeting because we have midterms so it was hard to meet and even to talk on WhatsApp but we was flexible on time and day also we do the project fairly and equally we do not face any problem me and my member group they also was so flexible and understandable and we help each other if we do not understand any part of the project and we do not face any problem about the language but we had some issues with difference in time zone, at the end I’m really enjoy when I was doing the project and the differences between us make a huge creativity to the project.

Ralph Reflection 

My reflections on the Coil project, at first I thought the project would have been an overwhelming experience. I assumed that we would run into many complications either with getting permission to interview companies or conflicting schedules amongst our groups. I was also worried about my contribution. I was worried about members not contributing equally. I wasn’t too worried about our cultural differences since I always make an effort to be respectful of other people’s cultures and beliefs. After our first meeting and introduction, I got a sense that everything would be alright since we got to connect and speak about where we were at in terms of finding our companies. Knowing that we all had already got permission from our companies made it a bit easier to get started right away which we did by creating a WhatsApp group chat with all our members. When it came to communication we didn’t face too many challenges, everyone was pretty active in the WhatsApp group chat, everyone asked insightful questions and all questions were answered. When it came to

dividing up the tasks we did it through a volunteer system where each individual chose what they wanted to do this allowed us to fairly divide up each task amongst ourselves. The only time we faced a bit of a challenge was when there was a change in time in Spain which caused us to push our meeting 30 minutes back which wasn’t too bad. Overall I enjoyed participating in this project. I enjoyed all the Zoom calls and conversations we had as a group, it helped me develop new skills that I’ll be able to take with me into the future.

Vasco Reflection 

This group project, COIL, was an experience I didn’t expect at all. The first time I heard about this project, I was very excited, because my teacher said that we would be working with students from other universities. I saw it as a unique opportunity to meet people from other cultures and create a connection with them.

The first time we met, I felt a bit of a barrier, because my level of English wasn’t up to par with my colleagues in Canada, and my fellow students in Arabia spoke equally well. At the end of the first meeting, we decided to create a WhatsApp group. In my opinion, I think that overall, each of us made an effort to respond in the group and to be active, and also to do the work. I admit that the time difference we each had had a certain impact on me. Something I didn’t expect at all was to be in a meeting while I was out for dinner.

Everyone in their own way made an effort to go to meetings, be active in the whatsapp group, and do a good job. I also really liked the dynamics we had in dividing up the parts of the work, the whole process. From the selection of the company to the style of the poster. You could see the professionalism, especially from my colleagues in Arabia. This experience left its mark on me, and I’m sorry it didn’t last longer, it really did have a transformative character.

Dalal Reflection 

My reflection on the Coil project, when Dr. Sayeda informed us about the Coil project for the first time and explained how it would be executed. I felt a little nervous and worried, especially with the thought of talking with students from various countries and universities by virtual platforms. This was completely new to me. My friends and I were used to working together to present our projects, so it was really unusual to do another kind of project. At the first meeting, when all of the universities and instructors were presented, I met my colleagues

from the UoG and UoN for the first time. They were very kind and friendly, we introduced ourselves and started a WhatsApp group chat, and that was interesting. The idea of working with different people from other countries and cultures made me excited. We distributed the

tasks equally among us, the whole team was energetic and excited to start working. But unfortunately, it wasn’t without challenges. Choosing a company that supports sustainability and has the ability to conduct interviews with us at the same time was the most difficult part of the project for me. As we were waiting for their responses to start our work. Also, the difference in our study schedules as well as the timing of our countries affected us and made it harder. However, because of my cooperative team, we were able to overcome these difficulties easily and moved on to the other tasks smoothly. The part I really enjoyed was designing the poster, as I find great fun in these activities, and with collaboration with my team, our poster turned out to be awesome and attractive. I can proudly say that my team was really perfect and distinguished. Despite all the conflicts and time constraints, we handled it effectively and gave it our best to get the job done perfectly. In brief, I didn’t expect this project to be so enjoyable. I am very glad to be a part of this experience, especially with these team members. I look forward to more similar projects in the future to enhance my knowledge and skills.

Gabriel Reflection

My experience with this group was incredible. Our second meeting I had slept through my alarm and felt like I had let my entire team down and it made me feel like dropping the course as a whole. However, when I went into the next meeting, every single one of my team members were more than understanding and seemed like they were looking out for me despite them living halfway around the world. It instilled the confidence in me that this group of people could work together to create a story that I would be proud of, and potentially win. The final product is something that I am confident in handing in and proud that my name could be attached to a project such as this. If I were to complete the project again, I would have liked to be more involved in the interview process as I am willing to admit that I could have put my foot forward even more and provided the interviewers with additional questions to ask. This has nothing to do with the interviewers themselves but everything to do with the fact that as much as I got so much out of this process, I could have got a little bit more.