While perhaps not the most likely case competition for conventional business students to participate in, five students from UVM’s Sustainable Innovation MBA (SI-MBA) program harnessed their unique business education as they competed in the Solid Waste Design Competition finals in March 2021. The team beat out six other schools including the National University of Engineering in Peru, University of British Columbia and University of Southern California among others, to win first place and Best Presentation Award at this year’s competition.
The Solid Waste Association of North America’s (SWANA) International Solid Waste Design Competition is a student team competition presenting an opportunity to solve real world problems faced by solid waste professionals. This year's competition focused on the closure of the Bakoteh dumpsite, an 18-hectare open dumpsite in the middle of The Gambia’s largest metropolitan area, Kanifing.
UVM’s SI-MBA team – comprised of Chandler Jacobson, Aidan Breen, Cecilia Giordano, Joshua Kenyon and Robbie Mingay built a winning solution for both closing the Bakoteh Dumpsite and supporting changes to modern solid waste management.
“We sought to center community and wellbeing in the site redesign, while also presenting innovative collaborations and revenue generation strategies informed by The Gambian context. This experience lends us optimism in tackling not only the world's waste crisis but broader sustainability challenges through meaningful partnership,” said the SI-MBA team.
For Robbie Mingay, the competition illuminated the relevancy of the SI-MBA curriculum. “We tried to approach the case with an awareness that solutions popular in some parts of the world may not be practical in The Gambia. Most of all we treated this case as a learning opportunity and a chance to apply the concepts we've covered in our SI-MBA coursework.”
The Bakoteh dumpsite is a 30-year-old facility that needed¬ design intervention in order to continue serving the needs of the community. The site contributes to many environmental challenges including groundwater contamination, air pollution, odors and environments desirable for disease vectors, that affect the health and wellbeing of locals. Now, after decades of largely unmanaged operations, the Bakoteh dumpsite is slated for closure, with the Kanifing Municipal Council seeking alternative destinations for the rapidly growing population’s waste.
Chandler Jacobson said “Working through this case competition was a great way to test the knowledge we have gained over the past year. Given that this was not inherently a ‘business competition’, we started this process without a whole lot of confidence; however, seeing how it worked out, the concept of ‘business as a force for good’ seems to have been validated!”
For Cecilia Giordano competing in the SWANA competition also had some special meaning. “This experience in global and cross-industry partnership is a microcosm of hope for what momentous challenges lay ahead of us in tackling not only the world's waste crisis, but in matters of sustainability at large. This is sincerely powerful as a young professional moving into my career. This was an opportunity to practice de-centering a white-cultured, western perspective and humility in design.”
After graduation, the Sustainable Innovation MBA graduates typically jump back into the workplace with the knowledge and skills they need to become change-agents in fields as diverse as impact investing, sustainable development, mission-driven marketing, supply chain management, nonprofit management and other socially responsible business functions like solid waste design.
SI-MBA program information can be found here.
