Wow, I can truly not believe what a ride it has been. Big thanks to all of you have followed me thus far on this journey.
As I reflect and look back on this entire 9-month experience, I can’t believe how much I learned about myself; and how unprepared I was for said learning. this experience taught me more about the work environment that I prefer. Upon gaining acceptance into this fellowship, I envisioned myself working in the developing world after graduation, but through my experience, I gained the knowledge that this is something I will no longer pursue in the immediate future. In addition to this, I also realized how much I still have to learn therefore I plan to enter the workforce here in the Silicon Valley to gain essential hard skills to further develop my business acumen.
In lieu of my learning, I have decided to try explore career opportunities I previously perceived as improbable or impossible. For during the ideation and building of the deliverables, I realized what capacity I have on a professional level. The ownership, responsibility, and control that Tom and I were given when executing our project was one of the best professional and academic experiences I have had thus far. As many may not know, Tom and I established that our workflow was very different early on, yet we figured out a way to utilize both our strengths and weaknesses to our advantages. This early acknowledgement was critical to our success. Having a team project experience with this much depth and rigor really provided me with a blueprint of how to recreate success when future opportunities present themselves in my professional career.
I believe that the developing world is on the rise, the situation is not as dire as many interpret it to be. I say this because there are very many capable intelligent people collaborating to solve some of the biggest, most critical problems facing their communities. From solar lamps to decentralized water distribution, innovation is filling the gap between traditional and fruitless approaches to problem solving. That being said, there is still a vast amount of work that needs to be done, especially in regard to the political structures and leadership dominating most of these developing countries. Some regimes threaten the thriving social enterprises attempting to disrupt the national economies, through high taxes, corrupt supply chains, and hostile combat situations. I do not know a solution in order to expedite this process, but I know that Social Enterprises across the world are succeeding in just that.