54 Mirza DDS & Associates in The United States

Team 115 Poster

Team Reflection

Our company, Mirza DDS & Associates, is a dental care company whose innovation was about combining dental care with job opportunities to help the community. The company’s mission is to care, commit ,and connect with it’s patients and create long-lasting relationships. The innovation is about combining dental care with job opportunities to help the community. Supporting the SDG of Good Health and Well-Being by making dental care more accessible and improving the health of the community, reducing inequalities in job opportunities, correlating the practice to (SDG:8) Decent Work and Economic Growth. Providing stable jobs in the dental industry, jobs encourages economic growth by making it easily accessible to quality care. The commitment to reaching out to those who suffer from inequality addresses the (SDG:10)Reduced Inequalities. We felt inspired by the company’s commitment to it’s goal for sustainability and innovative approach to giving opportunities to the community. Ashley being quite familiar with the company, she wasn’t really as shock as Alessandro since he knew little to nothing about the company before interviewing them. Their innovation had a big impact of social and economic growth. Reflecting on this story made us realize that providing steady jobs and career training in the dental field, helps people build stable careers while also building an emotional connection with the community. All we could think about while interviewing and writing the story was the lack of opportunities given to the underserved. Some class work that was related to this story would be the stories that we would discuss in Management class in which how we would talk about how different countries are not given equal opportunities due to their background. Meaning some countries are not hired in certain workplaces due to their race, beliefs, and sexual orientation. We talked about sustainability goals that Canada are trying to achieve such as clean water, climate action and etc. Ashley and I were able to use that coursework to our project as we were trying to connect the company to some of the SDGs.  The work was split up even within me and Ashley. We chose Ashley’s COIL company “Mirza DDS & Associates,” because her lovely mother works there, and she was able to interview and provide us with in depth information. We were running a bit late on the interview process as scheduling got pretty tough but within the last week, Ashley was able to provide me with the information that she had received from her mother. She provided the information about the COIL company and I was able to build off that information and the information given in the interview. We split up the weekly minute assignments within each other as well. I(Alessandro) did the first 2 weekly minute assignments and Ashley did the last 2. Being very communicated with each other but most importantly, understanding, of each other’s different lifestyle we were able to make a pretty strong pair that was able to write this story. Although, there was some positives in the project, there was some things that didn’t work. Something that did not work as well was the timing of doing the assignments. We left the assignments to the last couple days which made the project a little bit more stressful than what it should have been. Communication with the two other people from the other school also did not work which bummed us out because we were curious and excited to work with people who were not attending a school here in the United States.  This project will influence our perspectives and beliefs on companies to see whether or not they are willing to make a social impact instead of just being entirely focused on the revenue and not on the clients. Ashley and I came up with something as we were writing the story and that was that we came up with the saying of “the patients is what makes the company successful.” We both are going to be self-aware of the issues of inequalities and opportunities within the Chicagoland area and United States as a whole. The project inspired each of us to consider social impact in our future careers. Whether Ashley keeps working at a dental field or I work in the finance industry. Having the understanding of the importance of doing social good, it brings versatility in our knowledge of the world.  In conclusion, this project provided deep and powerful insights of how a business can make a positive impact in the world. As a team, our understanding our social responsibility and sustainability grew and we were able to develop new skills in self reflection. We hope to carry this project with us for the future and possibly contribute to social good in the world if given the opportunity.

Individual Reflections

Alessandro– Honestly, this project was pretty difficult at the start because of the lack of communication within the students outside of Dominican, Ashley and I were the only ones that participated in this activity even though it was a 6 person group project so the workload was pretty intense within the both of us. We tried to get a hold of the other students but the communication from the other side was completely poor. Reached out plenty of times and tried to schedule a call but nothing worked out at the end so Ashley and I just moved on so we wouldn’t suffer at the end. Although the workload was heavy, I learned a lot from the dental field and the innovations being used in order to make a social and economic impact within the company. Through difficulties and scheduling, we were able to come up with a story that we are proud to be part of and eventually published in the AIM2Flourish website.

Ashley- It was honestly a bit disappointing that the other team members from the University of South Wales didn’t participate. First off because of the workload. Our group fell very behind at first due to the lack of communication. Luckily, Alessandro and I kept effective communication and worked hard to catch up. One purpose of COIL is to gain experience with international relationships, Alessandro and I didn’t gain much but we did gain other expertise. We learned how to handle inconvenient situations and how to work through large workloads. The company that we chose is the company that I work for. I appreciate the opportunity to interview Syrley and learn more. I always knew that the company was serving the community, but I never realized to what extent until this project. At first, I only thought the company helped patients, but now I know that they are also making a positive impact by hiring diverse staff members and doctors.

References 

Syrley Orduna (Interview)

Mirza Dental. (n.d.). About us. Mirza Dental. https://mirzadental.com/about-us

ChatGPT. (n.d) “Double Check Grammar” Prompt. https://chatgpt.com/c/6726f2b4-78b0-800b-90b5-05b980b515bd