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Ha Thu Phan is a student in the Business Administration – Human Resources program. In this blog entry, she describes her experience and project in the Seneca SDG Case Competition.
When I first started out in the Business Administration – Human Resources program, I had little interest in sustainability. From my perspective, the main goal of businesses was to generate monetary profits to bring benefits to their stakeholders and shareholders. This perspective changed when I came back to my home country, Vietnam, and coincidentally came across a competition for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that was launched in Montreal, Canada. I took part in this competition and received one of the Top 5 prizes, and came home with more knowledge and passion about this area of business. With more confidence, two teammates and I registered for the Seneca SDG Case Competition and won second place! The experience was worth it.
The scope of the competition was huge. More than 90 students in teams or individually competed in brainstorming projects to make Seneca more sustainable and inclusive. We attended mentoring sessions, prepared our idea and presentation, and showcased our project to the judges. My team came up with an idea to expand the Seneca bee farms where we would continue to grow and maintain the population of bees to both preserve this species while also generating revenue out of its product, honey. The profits would be re-invested to grow the bee population, and create funds for students. The judges were impressed with our project, and we won a wonderful 2nd prize in the competition which we were very proud of.
What was great about the competition was not just the prize (don’t get me wrong, the prize is enormous enough for me to burst into tears!) but also the experience that I had throughout those precious days of the competition. I met two amazing teammates; one was a student in the Sustainable Business Management program, and she helped to make the idea more realistic and feasible. We were very flexible and dedicated to this competition, and I could feel the passion and motivation among my team members. As I was in my home country which was 12 hours ahead of Canada, I almost got no sleep or would sleep during the day, so we had enough time for the project (my eye circles made me look like a panda sleepwalking around the house at 3 AM in the morning, but I loved it). Moreover, we were assigned a coach to give us guidance with our project, and he was very helpful as well. All members were very responsive and dealt greatly with pressure. Until this day, we still appreciated that we met each other through this competition and learned a lot.
This competition provided me with an opportunity to innovate and create. This experience gave us a lot of knowledge from coaches that are experts in the field and we were thrilled to meet and listen to them. Apart from this, this competition allowed me to use my creativity, knowing that all ideas area were heard and appreciated. I am also amazed that I got to get out of my comfort zone and try new things that broadened my mind. If you don’t face hardship, you would never have experienced such bliss when you overcome not only the hardship but also your old self, to grow and flourish. So do not be afraid to just give it a try! 😊
Ha Thu Phan
Business Administration – Human Resources
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