62 KAITA in Spain

Team 48 Poster

Team Reflection

When we started our project, our first question was which of the five proposed companies aligned best with the SDGs. The first company we considered seemed like an ideal fit for the AIM2Flourish assignment—a perfect match in every way. However, we ultimately decided to take a different approach and choose Kaita instead.

While Kaita might not have been the most obvious choice, it stood out as the most human and authentic company we could think of. Although Kaita may not be poised to change the entire world, they are deeply committed to making a significant impact in their field and work tirelessly to achieve that goal. Kaita exemplifies the principle of doing whatever you undertake to the best of your ability. Their innovation is straightforward yet impactful, reflecting a sincere commitment to sustainable practices that aligns perfectly with the message we aimed to convey. ¿How did Kaita manage to grow while helping?

Kaita has made an implicit promise to Peru, a promise they have been fulfilling for 25 years, which made our work way easier. During our interview, we learned firsthand about Kaita’s innovative approach to utilizing the Peruvian ecosystem and the variety of nature provided ingredients in a sustainable and responsible way to benefit the local community. As a distributed team comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds, one team member (from Mexico) highlighted the significance of medium to large companies in third-world countries actively working to support their communities, this as a help of what governments lack to fulfill. Through these small yet meaningful actions, Kaita has fostered a community that believes in their products and follows their lead, knowing their products are being produced responsibly and ethically for the benefit of the community as a whole.

With this information, along with insights from external sources, we realized that while having a great idea is essential, the profitability, viability, and overall accountability of a business are crucial, at the end of the day we are business mayors, but Kaita addressed these challenges through what we consider a vital principle in business: honesty.

We all agree that it is not easy for a company to be profitable while solely benefiting the community. Businesses are not NGOs, but Kaita has demonstrated how these two aspects can be interconnected in simpler ways. By focusing on extracting the best from their products, Kaita combined knowledge and raw materials to create wonders for the company. However, to truly sell their product, they embraced transparency as their guiding policy. We learned that by doing so, they not only educated their consumers but also built significant trust in their products, which helped them grow at a faster pace.

For all of this, exploring the AIM2Flourish story has affected the way we will act and think in the future. Businesses are created and destroyed daily, but overcoming the challenges in our everyday world requires a strong commitment to sustainability. We once thought that “biodegradable” and “natural” could not coexist with “profitability,” but we now understand that these two variables are indeed interconnected. Most businesses are unaware of the existence of the SDGs, but keeping them in mind will undoubtedly help us create innovations for sustainability in the future.

In concluding this reflection, we acknowledge some critical points. Our team learned that regardless of where a business is located, in this case Peru, humanistic goals are shared across the globe. We may not speak the same languages or follow the same traditions or religions, but we do share the responsibility of making future businesses more ethically oriented and sustainable for the world we all share.

The learnings from our courses complemented our teamwork significantly, but what truly helped was the wealth of experiences each team member brought to the table from their personal backgrounds.

In terms of task division, we primarily assigned responsibilities based on our perceived strengths. However, one of the biggest challenges we faced was that not everyone was equally motivated by the project. While we were all involved to some extent, the contributions were not evenly distributed, this summed up in a bigger workload on some of the participants. In a randomly chosen small group of students from around the globe, different levels of engagement played a crucial role in our project’s dynamics and workload distribution.

To end our reflection paper, we would like to express our gratitude to our professors for their hard work and coordination throughout this project. You have been a true inspiration and exemplified what a functional distributed team should look like.

Individual Reflections 

Santiago Castillón:

Working in a cross-cultural, distributed team certainly comes with its challenges, which can be much greater than those we face when collaborating within our “comfort zone” with familiar colleagues. However, these challenges make the final outcome and the cross-cultural learning experience even more rewarding and enriching. The biggest challenge I encountered was managing timelines and finding suitable hours for synchronous meetings throughout the project. This aspect required significant effort and flexibility from all five team members, as balancing personal and local responsibilities with the demands of an international project can be complex and sometimes slow the pace of progress.

Despite these hurdles, participating in this COIL was both challenging and fulfilling. I felt a strong sense of responsibility as part of a distributive team, which pushed me to adapt and grow. Patience was my biggest ally, but the final result makes you wonder about the magnificence of teamwork. With this teamwork in mind I would like to thank my colleagues for making this COIL experience a great way to learn from people around the globe. At last I would like to emphasize the importance of sustainable leadership that now falls in our hands as the young leaders of tomorrow.

Javier Brizuela:

Personally, I had never handled a project like this before—in terms of international scope, field of study, and hands-on collaboration with real businesses. Undergoing this collaborative experience has broadened my worldview and compelled me to apply foundational knowledge into practice, enhancing soft skills such as communication, analytical thinking, respectfulness, team building, and research.

In terms of meetings, I believe that we were able to successfully overcome the different challenges that COIL posed to us. In order to do this, we followed the same schedule proposed for the launching meeting, implemented the tips given by our professors (about cordiality, respect, understanding the others’ cultural settings and habits, and professionalism), and used our own social tools and values. In this sense, I am grateful for the opportunity that COIL has given us, particularly the possibility of reaching Kaita, understanding its commitments and achievements deeply, giving them a platform to highlight their success while giving us the chance to connect theory with practice and the proof that there are businesses that truly care about their customers, their origins, and their responsibility as members of society.

With respect to teamwork, in general, it has been an enriching experience—following the conclusions reached earlier—and especially because of the international aspect. However, I must admit that not everyone has shown the same level of engagement and commitment during the activity, at least in the final and decisive moments. I would like to thank Santiago and Rewa in particular for their efforts. Despite this, the overall experience has been quite satisfying.

Elijah:

At the start of this assignment, I was a bit apprehensive about how everything would come together. Working and collaborating with students from all over the world felt intimidating, and my mind was racing with countless “what-if” scenarios of things potentially going wrong. However, my experience turned out to be nothing like that.

Javier and Santiago from were two amazing teammates who made the process a pleasure. They were both consistently communicative, sharing ideas, plans, group expectations, and strategies for completing the assignment. As the ones conducting the interview, they gathered excellent information for our story and even translated the transcript from Spanish to English, which allowed Andrew and me to focus on crafting the narrative.

Rewa, though unable to join verbally on audio, still contributed actively sharing ideas, answering questions, and keeping us informed about expectations and deadlines. She is the even the creator of that  fantastic poster for our group.

Andrew was always supportive of others’ ideas and brought a wealth of his own to the table. Working on the story with him was seamless; we collaborated effectively and shared clear expectations. He also organized documents summarizing our contributions, which streamlined our work and served as a valuable reference.

Overall, we made our team calls friendly and fun while consistently hitting our weekly tasks and setting new goals. It was a great experience to meet these teammates and navigate the unique challenges and rewards of collaborating across different parts of the world.

References

• Health and beauty spending | UK economy | Barclays. (n.d.). https://home.barclays/insights/2024/09/the-beauty-boom-redefining-consumer-essentials/
• TRADING ECONOMICS. (n.d.). Peru average monthly wages. https://tradingeconomics.com/peru/wages

Student resources. (2024, July 31). AIM2Flourish. https://aim2flourish.com/student-resources