I came across the Breakthrough Innovation Challenge competition via an email distributed by the career services. At the time, I was waiting for registration and first semester to begin. I convinced my friends Bridget and Wadzanai – who both hold Masters in Chemical Engineering from UCT - to form a team and work to solve one of the eight challenges. They both agreed and we spent a week going through all eight challenges and in the end, each one of us had to motivate which challenge we should solve. Thankfully, I was out-voted and we began working on Nestlé’s Challenge:
We challenge you to enable exponential consumer engagement and behaviour change to contribute towards Nestlé’s strategy to prevent and minimise food waste along the value chain, as part of our commitment with SDG 12.3 (Responsible Consumption)”
After a few weeks, we received confirmation from the UN Global Compact that Nestlé had chosen our team’s (we called ourselves Eco-Foodies) solution as the winners. Part of winning meant being invited to attend the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York and present the final solution alongside Nestlé at the Breakthrough Innovation Lab. We continued conceptualizing the best way to encourage responsible food consumption with Nestlé and improve the app that developers were building. It was an interesting experience and we learnt a lot about the implications food waste has on the environment. We all shared the same moral conscience; that food waste should be avoided especially when not everyone in the world has the privilege of food security. We came up with a food minder app officially named Bagzielicious that will allow consumers to manage their food consumption and in turn alleviate food waste through a tracker alert that alarms users when their unconsumed food moves closer to expiration. Although the app is still at its final stages of development, I am excited to witness the success of it when it is launched next year, 2018.
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Wednesday 20 September: Company engagement and award ceremony
On Wednesday, 20 September 2017 we all gathered at the UN Global Compact Offices for lunch and met our Mentor from Nestlé, Hélène Lanctuit, for the first time. We spent the rest of the day working on our presentations and going through dry runs in preparation for the Breakthrough Innovation Lab that would take place at the Leaders Summit, on Thursday, 21 September 2017.
During the preparations leading up to the Leaders Summit, I had grown accustomed to video conferences as our main form of communication. It was great to finally meet everyone in person at the UN Global Compact Offices. To make the event more memorable, we all witnessed each other being awarded a certificate of excellence, in an intimate ceremony with our companies the UN Global Compact Team. It was heartwarming to be acknowledged and I will always hold on to that moment.
Just after the award ceremony, where all the students were granted a certificate of excellence for our “outstanding performance and lasting contribution to the Breakthrough Innovation Challenge” we took a group photo at the UN Global Compact reception with our mentor, Hélène.
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Thursday 21 September
Breakthrough Innovation Laboratory
The Breakthrough Innovation Lab was setup to provide the company and student teams (seven in total) a platform to display the innovative solutions and cool prototypes, which everyone had worked over the year to develop. To lure investors in, one representative from each team presented a three-minute pitch on our innovation. Our pitch presented by Hélène from Nestlé was effective in attracting many businesses to our booth. Meanwhile my teammates and I were engaging with individuals that were interested in our prototype and we walked them through the key functions of the Food minder app; emphasizing the impactful change it would create towards addressing responsible consumption and reducing food waste. We came across a few Corporate Representatives that were interested in collaborating with Nestlé to increase its global reach. The app was well received by the everyone who came to our booth at the Breakthrough Innovation Lab and in my opinion made our hard work fruitful.
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UN Global Compact Leaders Summit Overview
The UN Global Compact strategy is to drive business awareness and actions in support of achieving the sustainable development goals by the year 2030. The objective is for companies to align their operations and strategies forward to shape sustainable economic growth. The Leaders Summit is a platform for Global Leaders to display their sustainability initiatives and inspire attendees to invest in these innovative business models that aim to create sustainable profitability. The breakthrough innovation lab highlighted the disruptive innovative solutions that companies have committed to adopting into their businesses by addressing the SGD goals that relate to their business.
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I was encouraged when I came across South African Pioneers in attendance, the more South Africans engage on a global scale, the closer we are to being at the forefront of innovative global commercialisation with new efficient technologies, products and services. The event was filled with diverse selection of companies across all sectors, which were keen and open to forming partnerships with each other. It was a rewarding experience to see firsthand actionable solutions that are being developed and implemented to improve infrastructure efficiency and promote social inclusion beyond the business’ bottom line.
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It felt great to be a part of a movement bigger than me and truly inspiring to be around Global Leaders that were engaging in frank discussions about how they were defining their role and contribution to conducting business within the accepted ten UN principles and SGD goals. Businesses were challenged to make a conscious effort to reject the “business-as-usual” mindset. The opening panel discussion, which included Executive Director of UN Women Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as one panellist shared the importance of Gender Equality (SDG 5) in her opening statement that resonated with me as a female. Her goal is to increase the number of women that have access to internet and increase computer literacy amongst women. She mentioned that the gap between men and women who have access to internet is widening and closed off with a thought-provoking note “women lost out in the industrial revolution and we should not lose out in the digital revolution”. Her message resonated with me, knowing very well that I have come across females (mostly the older generation, including my grandmother) that choose not to make use of the internet and rely on television news and newspapers to stay informed about current affairs (which can sometimes limiting at times). However, with the fast speed that technology is evolving, particularly in our field of Fintech, it is more important now to ensure our youth is comfortable and can easily adapt to the advancements in technology. I personally do not want to be a bystander in this digital revolution and would like to encourage us all to be a part of this “disruptive change”.
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To the city that never sleeps - New York
We lived in Queens Village (an hour away from NYC) for the duration of our stay and had to commute to New York City every day. This got us accustomed to the subway system very quickly. I must say, the novelty of being on the subway wore off after our first ride. It was abnormally humid down there, and we came across a few little creatures that made us uneasy. Besides that, one thing I enjoyed was the free WiFi whilst in transit on the train. One culture shock, was the cost of one US prepaid simcard, (could end up paying close to $50 dollars), whereas in SA getting a simcard costs less than R5. So instead, we chose to binge on free WiFi wherever we could connect instead of purchasing a US simcard. Starbucks became home after we figured out their uncapped free WiFi and the amazing coffee.
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Before our trip to New York, we purchased a three-day bus tour. That came in handy with getting around the city. However, being in the city during the “UN week” (as New Yorkers call it), the traffic was at its peak. So we found ourselves frequently getting off the Tour Bus earlier and walk to our destinations instead. New Yorkers consider a 15 minute walk as “not far”, so we soon realised that coming into the city with our sandals would not equip us for the amount of walking we’d end up doing. We walked on average 15 km around the city every day. I got used to getting lost and this enriched our experience of New York. We found cool hidden gems and interesting places to eat. One place I had to visit was the infamous Wall Street that had more tourists roaming the streets than men and women in suits. The bull was occupied and surrounded by tourists, in hindsight I should have ‘grabbed the bull by its horns’ to clear the way for us to take a picture next to it. I guess we were more excited to make our way to the Statue Of Liberty.
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Another highlight was visiting the Empire State Building. It closes at 2am and made our way up to the top. The city lights as well as the glistening Hudson River were beautiful to see from that height. However, the top of the Empire State Building was deceivingly cold and windy (similar to the temperatures on Table Mountain) considering how humid it was on the streets.
I will miss walking through the magnificent tall buildings and ancient churches around the city, and the amazingly well kept parks around Manhattan.
Final thoughts
The 2017 UN Global Compact Leaders Summit has come and gone, but the words of the Global Leaders will remain with me for years to come. I am looking forward to the future and aspire to be identified as a Global Leader that pushes beyond the boundaries of technology and create disruptive change through the face of sustainable business conduct.
I am grateful for the opportunity that AIFMRM provided through sponsoring my trip to attend the Leaders Summit. Especially to Co-Pierre Georg, who acted as my advocate and believed in this initiative.