With a game plan and a topic selected, our group seemed to be off to a great start. We organized a Dropbox in which each of us would drop in articles or blogs about farming in developing world. Each of us would then read them in order to be on the same page as everyone else. Furthermore, our meetings with professors have allowed us to gather an even deeper understanding of the industry.
Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. During our meetings it became apparent that the topic is something most of us were not passionate about. We read the materials to read the materials and interviewed the professors with a low degree of engagement. This problem was an issue that we needed to address as the meeting conversations became dull even though our research was progressing.
In our most recent meeting we decided to not be completely sold on the agriculture space. We wanted to explore more ideas that we may be more interested in. I personally was very happy that this was the new decision as I felt as if I couldn't get myself to be passionate about the agriculture space. I bet this is why not many have attempted to address problems in this market! Therefor we wanted to continue to drive the idea forward but still explore a couple of other issues.
Our group began to brainstorm once again, asking each individual to return to the meeting with a topic that they would really like to explore. I'm excited to hear what our group comes up with next! Hopefully we can find a middle ground of an attractive market that we could all be very very interested in.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Developing country's agriculture
Aparna and Curan hit it off in our mingling session due to the fact that they both had done research for agriculture and farming for developing countries. Through studying that space, the two of them have found a demand for a tracking product that farmers could use for, either to better predict the weather, record their seasonal orders, keep track of their seeding and watering procedures, etc. The motivation behind the space is that it is a very large market in which few people have paid attention to, therefore have not addressed. These solutions are also easier to produce because they can be modeled off of existing solutions that developed nations have.
Barriers to this solution were the fact that any mobile application that we develop would need a system that produces the inputs that we need. Whether its a database that understands the schedule of planting that farmers have or the collection of weather predictors.
To drive the idea forward, our assignment was to reach out to at least five professors in the agriculture industry (specifically of developing countries). We wanted to achieve three things by the end of our conversation:
1) Select a country or region of focus for the app
2) Understand the day-to-day tasks of a farmer in the developing world
3) Recognize the pain points that we can address
4) Develop a way to size the market
So far, the professors that we have reached out to have slowly been replying but it is very difficult to schedule a time in which the team and the professor are not busy.
Barriers to this solution were the fact that any mobile application that we develop would need a system that produces the inputs that we need. Whether its a database that understands the schedule of planting that farmers have or the collection of weather predictors.
To drive the idea forward, our assignment was to reach out to at least five professors in the agriculture industry (specifically of developing countries). We wanted to achieve three things by the end of our conversation:
1) Select a country or region of focus for the app
2) Understand the day-to-day tasks of a farmer in the developing world
3) Recognize the pain points that we can address
4) Develop a way to size the market
So far, the professors that we have reached out to have slowly been replying but it is very difficult to schedule a time in which the team and the professor are not busy.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
LEGO Challenge
This week we embarked on the Lego Challenge. Curan and I were the architect while Tsion, Aparna, and Eugene were the engineers.
Before going into the challenge, hearing the roles, we predicted it was something very similar to what actually took place. As Curan was the communicator of the model piece while I was in charge of writing down the details. It was important that we were both on the same page. Having worked with Curan several times before, I understood the way he communicated very well. At first we were very detailed about our approach, making sure that we described each layer precisely by the number of units each color is and where it should be placed.
At a certain point we realized how difficult it still was for someone completely fresh to understand what we were trying to say and then recreate it. That was when we began to get discouraged and felt that we should just try to recreate the plane by describing how it should look like rather than doing specific instructions for the rest. This approach of the bigger picture rather than the small detail, we thought, would create room for the engineers to get creative but the outcome would be very similar to the actual model.
When we found out that the engineers didn't receive the correct parts, our friends in the other groups asked us if we could switch parts so that both of us could create something. This was frustrating and our team decided to just build anything that would resemble a helicopter with our resources.
Reflecting upon what this means for the outlook of our team, it appears that we are able to adjust and are the going with the flow type. I think we are also very easy going with the means to the end as long as the bigger picture is achieved.
Before going into the challenge, hearing the roles, we predicted it was something very similar to what actually took place. As Curan was the communicator of the model piece while I was in charge of writing down the details. It was important that we were both on the same page. Having worked with Curan several times before, I understood the way he communicated very well. At first we were very detailed about our approach, making sure that we described each layer precisely by the number of units each color is and where it should be placed.
At a certain point we realized how difficult it still was for someone completely fresh to understand what we were trying to say and then recreate it. That was when we began to get discouraged and felt that we should just try to recreate the plane by describing how it should look like rather than doing specific instructions for the rest. This approach of the bigger picture rather than the small detail, we thought, would create room for the engineers to get creative but the outcome would be very similar to the actual model.
When we found out that the engineers didn't receive the correct parts, our friends in the other groups asked us if we could switch parts so that both of us could create something. This was frustrating and our team decided to just build anything that would resemble a helicopter with our resources.
Reflecting upon what this means for the outlook of our team, it appears that we are able to adjust and are the going with the flow type. I think we are also very easy going with the means to the end as long as the bigger picture is achieved.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Initial Push
It's funny how one's idea of humble beginnings is much more graceful than the actuality of it. That's where we began.
I was out of the country for a week and came back with a formed team. Curan, the beautiful mind and the beautiful person who I came into the class with, found three engineers to join our pair. They all had very different backgrounds and personality.
Aparna is an EECS major with a driven and motivated attitude that most people lack. Her energy drove the team for most of the conversation. Although she is younger than everyone. It was amazing to watch her contribute heavily to the team.
Tsion is also an EECS major but she has a design flare that enables her thoughts to be very different from the rest of the group. Her sense of humor and creative mind, added a new layer to the conversation each time. She is always supportive of everyone's idea but doesn't mind pushing it forward by adding new suggestions to them.
Eugene is another EECS major but it is very apparent that he has a passion for certain industries, like healthcare and the collaboration space. Although he is often the most quiet of the group, every time he speaks it always adds a lot of value to the group. We always appreciate the way he questions ideas in order to push our group forward.
The personalities were all different but what was interesting is that no one in our group truly had an idea that they had their heart set on. This is was has kept us to continually have conversations about our product. So far, we continue to dance in circles. Each of us are assigned a certain type of product that we have been exploring in the meeting and try to research further into the market in order to convince the others to also like the product.
At this stage, our ideas are still around health trackers, nutrition monitors, or developing agriculture tools. The goal is to narrow it down to just two in two weeks and finally pick one through our due diligence.
I was out of the country for a week and came back with a formed team. Curan, the beautiful mind and the beautiful person who I came into the class with, found three engineers to join our pair. They all had very different backgrounds and personality.
Aparna is an EECS major with a driven and motivated attitude that most people lack. Her energy drove the team for most of the conversation. Although she is younger than everyone. It was amazing to watch her contribute heavily to the team.
Tsion is also an EECS major but she has a design flare that enables her thoughts to be very different from the rest of the group. Her sense of humor and creative mind, added a new layer to the conversation each time. She is always supportive of everyone's idea but doesn't mind pushing it forward by adding new suggestions to them.
Eugene is another EECS major but it is very apparent that he has a passion for certain industries, like healthcare and the collaboration space. Although he is often the most quiet of the group, every time he speaks it always adds a lot of value to the group. We always appreciate the way he questions ideas in order to push our group forward.
The personalities were all different but what was interesting is that no one in our group truly had an idea that they had their heart set on. This is was has kept us to continually have conversations about our product. So far, we continue to dance in circles. Each of us are assigned a certain type of product that we have been exploring in the meeting and try to research further into the market in order to convince the others to also like the product.
At this stage, our ideas are still around health trackers, nutrition monitors, or developing agriculture tools. The goal is to narrow it down to just two in two weeks and finally pick one through our due diligence.
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