Today we learned a lot about Farah and her entrepreneurial experiences. I found it very interesting and inspiring how she did not even really remember the failures she faced when starting the CCCL because she just used hardships and solved them to help make the CCCL better. Her talk also inspired me because she mentioned that it does not take talent to be an entrepreneur. I found this very helpful for the exercise because it let me relax knowing that I just had to share my ideas and there was no specific way that it had to be done.

I had a lot of things that interested me that I observed during the exercise. One thing that was very interesting was that one of the guys in our group who went to a school here in Morrocco and Sadie had just watched the same water bottle video. I could not exactly understand or picture what exactly they were talking about that happened in the video but the fact that they both saw it was just a reminder that even though we all are from so far away our lives aren’t all that different. I also thought about this when we were designing our product plan which was a smart water bottle. We all face the same problems about needing water filtration at times and the fact that was something that connected us was special. Everyone was also so friendly in my group it was really nice to be able to interact and brainstorm ideas with everyone.

I feel like our team’s dynamic was very collaborative. We all really booked off each other’s ideas, and I do not know about everyone else, but I at least felt very comfortable sharing my ideas and did not feel judged or intimidated at all. Luckily, we really did not have any challenges while coming up with our product. Maybe the hardest thing was honestly coming up with the name, but I think we decided on a pretty good one with “Quench.” I thought that our product idea was very successful and if we released it, I think we would be billionaires for sure. On a real note, I actually was very happy with the idea we came up with. We saw a need that we all had and honestly if someone would have offered me a filtration water bottle at the airport, I would’ve bought it. My favorite part of the whole thing was just being able to talk with everyone to figure out the best product we could make. I had never done a collaborative opportunity like this before and it was really eye opening to see a different side of business that’s coming up with new ideas going off of nothing instead of helping with a product that already exists.

Overall, I had a really great time today and am very thankful for Farah and the experience she shared with us along with the students who came in on a Sunday to do the activity together. See you tomorrow!

Sarah