Sam Borton – Page 2 – Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity

August 13, 2021February 16, 2022

Summer 2021 Recap

Summer in the Hunt Institute is always an exciting season of transition and growth for our team. Though the summer team is typically smaller with many of our student workers participating in internships or taking summer classes, it was nonetheless encouraging to be able to engage in person with our coworkers after adjusting to a hybrid workspace for much of the last year. After we celebrated our graduating students in May, we changed gears to a summer of training new team members and strengthening our processes, delving deeper into existing projects, and continuing to engage with our community. This post serves to highlight some specific happenings in the Institute over this summer:

In June, Mohammed Njie shared a HunTalk about his journey to bring clean energy to The Gambia and the support of his colleagues in the Institute along the way.

Mohammed said that clean, reliable energy in The Gambia “is necessary now more than ever given the effects of climate change on agriculture, the country’s most important industry. This makes our venture a necessary and worthy cause.”

Also taking place in June was the final ImpactNights ™ of the academic year, which was dedicated to “Freedom Day” with an expert-led look at the obstructions in our justice system that hinder economic freedom for a significant number of black and brown Americans. Read more about the event here and view the engaging conversation here.

The Social Enterprise Program in the Institute was a focus this summer, as the 2021 Cohort of Social Intrapreneurs continued developing their innovative solutions. Working to support the intrapreneurs is Valecia Harris, the graduate Program Consultant and Manager for the Social Enterprise Program.

Valecia noted that she is “excited to be part of a team where I can lend my knowledge and experience in developing strategies and supporting innovative solutions that generate transformational impact.”

Undergraduate student workers are involved in this area as well, as Undergraduate Research Analyst Scott Zuo was featured in July for his research involving inclusive economy best practices and mapping of the international ecosystem for social enterprise.

As mentioned previously, many student workers in the Hunt Institute received tremendous opportunities to acquire new skills and experiences through internships outside of the Institute. Undergraduate Marketer John Morgan reminded us to worry less and dream more after recounting his experience working with children as a program specialist at Lakeview Methodist Conference Center, and Undergraduate Research Analyst Sam Borton explained his summer research on non-revenue water at the Institute for Technology and Global Health. We are excited to reconnect with all of our student workers who worked elsewhere this summer to hear about their experiences.

Lastly, we highlight the exciting progress being made on STEM Up Phase II, in which using the solar power produced at Tintinto Primary and Secondary School in The Gambia, low-cost and low-power servers and refurbished laptops will outfit a computer lab. This project continues to progress as Wilkie Stevenson ’20 works tirelessly to finalize the prototype.

Be sure to stay up to date on these and the many other exciting projects and initiatives happening at the Hunt Institute this Fall. Pony Up!

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

August 2, 2021August 12, 2021

Kamilah Collins: Conversations about Community and Resilience

On this episode of The Hunt Institute’s Sages & Seekers Podcast, Kamilah Collins shares the tools for discovering our social identities and explains how we can use that knowledge to better understand and collaborate with others.

Kamilah Collins is President of Collins Collaborations, and she has over twenty years of workshop facilitation, program management, and community engagement expertise. She provides creative and practical strategies to increase our capacity for change while amplifying diversity. Her passion for connecting people and strengthening communities shines through in every engagement. Her enthusiastic communication style and commitment to advancing equity transforms minds, hearts, and organizations around the country.

Collins said, “These social tensions are challenging, especially if we can opt out. It’s fantastic that you have a choice, it’s unfortunate that others don’t.”

What is Hunt Sages & Seekers?

The Hunt Institute Sages & Seekers Podcast shares the stories of innovative social leaders and the resilient communities that have shaped them. The series explores guests’ personal experiences with social issues ranging from inequity in the arts and school segregation to climate change and police violence. Through conversations with these agents of change, listeners gain insight into the history of these matters and discover how we as a global community can work to correct them. Follow us on SoundCloud at Hunt Sages & Seekers Podcast.

August 2, 2021August 12, 2021

Chris Kelley: Conversations about Community and Resilience

On this episode of The Hunt Institute’s Sages & Seekers Podcast, Chris Kelley discusses the Rwandan Genocide, its causes, how Rwanda has moved forward, and what we can all learn from this story. In the spring of 2019, Kelley published “Rwanda: 25 Years Later: A Primer on the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and What’s Happened Since Then.”

A Senior Fellow in the Institute, Kelley has more than 35 years’ experience in the journalism, interactive content and strategic communications fields. He is a passionate advocate for partners, working with them to develop influential content in all media formats (print, video, web, and social media) that inspires targeted audiences to action. Kelley is an expert in media relations and story-telling, having worked 27 years for Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corp., where he served as editor of DallasNews.com, website of The Dallas Morning News, and as a news reporter for 18 years. His video productions have received wide acclaim.

A relentless problem solver, Kelley, after accepting a voluntary severance arrangement from A.H. Belo Corp in 2006, formed The Kelley Group to bring his communications skills to select non-profits, humanitarian organizations and visionary corporations to expand the reach of their message effectiveness, using both traditional media and New Media formats to inspire a greater audience worldwide to take positive action on society’s challenges.

Focusing on human causes and social justice issues, Kelley is an expert in media relations and crisis communications, and through his media consultancy he has partnered with the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, Refugee Services of Texas, SMU, the Lighthouse for the Blind (Envision Dallas), the Deaf Action Center, and Alliance for Greater Works, among other institutions that engage in what he describes as having a big difference to make but needing some help to make it more efficiently and effectively.

In the conversation, Kelley said, “Rwanda is proof that through hard work, and with forgiveness, people can work through difficult issues.”

What is Hunt Sages & Seekers?

August 2, 2021August 12, 2021

Janeil Engelstad: Conversations about Community and Resilience

On this episode of The Hunt Institute’s Sages & Seekers Podcast, Janeil Engelstad discusses the power of collaboration, self-reflection, and gratitude.

Engelstad is the Founding Director of Make Art with Purpose (MAP), an organization that produces collaborative artist-led projects that address social and environmental concerns. MAP projects include communities as partners in the production of the work, directly engage the audience to participate beyond the role of passive observer and ignite creative collaboration from museums, schools, government, business, NGOs and other partners. Her podcast, MAP Radio Hour, conversations at the intersection of art, design, science, politics and justice is hosted by Creative Disturbance and ARTECA/MIT.

In the conversation, Engelstad said, “In sharing our stories, we find our commonality and where we meet as humans.”

What is Hunt Sages & Seekers?

July 26, 2021February 16, 2022

Lessons from Summer Internship: Worry Less and Dream More

Many of our student workers were able to spend this summer participating in various internships outside of the Hunt Institute. Students often return from these experiences with a fantastic arsenal of newly acquired skills, ideas, and perspectives. This summer, the undergraduate marketer in the Institute, John Morgan, spent six weeks working as a program specialist at Lakeview Methodist Conference Center just south of Palestine, Texas. John graciously shared the following about his experience:

Take a moment and think back to your youth. Think about times when you were running around your backyard pretending you were anywhere else. Think about walking down the aisle in the grocery store begging your parents for a toy or a snack. Think about how upset you were when a sibling or friend had something you didn’t, and that thing seemed like the most important thing in the world.

These instances, along with many others from our childhood, can seem cringeworthy or laughable in retrospect, but I think it’s important to remember the mindset with which we would approach life as children. That innocent, worry-free worldview often escapes us as we mature and are confronted with reality. However, every now and then, it may make sense for us to embrace the youthful spirit of having a goal in mind without focusing on the complications in accomplishing it.

This summer, my daily routine for six weeks consisted of facilitating games, setting up activities, and entertaining armies of third through fifth grade kids. This can certainly be a daunting task, but the relationships that my coworkers and I formed with these kids were ultimately what kept us sane. While it isn’t fun to constantly remind elementary campers not to wander into a live archery range or swim too far in the lake, it was easy to fall in love with the genuine excitement and enthusiasm with which they approached every moment. It’s fair to say that I learned as much from them as they learned from me.

One memorable moment from my experience surprisingly came from a response on one of the camper surveys at the end of the week. Despite the various misspelled words –“dogball” instead of “dodgeball,” for example– and no shortage of blunt feedback from these kids, many of the most meaningful responses came from the question, “What did you learn about yourself this week?” It was here where a kid, one who I had seen blossom from a state of homesickness on the first day to pure joy by the end of the week, answered that he learned that he needed to worry less and dream more. Reading this and knowing what this camper had gone through in those five days, I couldn’t help but shed some tears.

After forty days in the middle of East Texas, I have returned to reality with the strong notion that it might be beneficial for us to take that third grader’s advice: worry less in our pursuits in order to dream more.

Here at the Hunt Institute, we strive to serve as a hub to develop future-focused solutions to worldly challenges. As the undergraduate marketer, I have the privilege of witnessing and showcasing the Institute’s impactful projects and initiatives. We bear a responsibility to help improve the world around us, and therefore we must continue to think big, allowing ourselves to dream instead of listing the barriers in front of us. In the fulfillment of our aspirations, let’s choose to worry less and dream more.

July 21, 2021August 12, 2021

Janette Monear: Conversations about Community and Resilience

In this episode of The Hunt Institute’s Sages & Seekers Podcast, Janette Monear explains the vital relationship between the environment and community and how we can work to save it.

Janette Monear is President and CEO of the Texas Trees Foundation, a private nonprofit focused on urban forestry, green infrastructure and sustainable design. She is a frequent speaker at local and national conferences, and she co-produced and wrote the narration for the Telly award winning Public Television documentary “Spirit of the Trees.”

Under Monear’s direction, the Foundation created two major studies, State of the Dallas Urban Forest Report and The Dallas Urban Heat Island Study which helped transition the environmental focus for the City of Dallas.

As a visionary and social entrepreneur, she has integrated a model for the Texas Trees Foundation that provides a diverse portfolio of funding through nontraditional revenue streams for projects and programs that bring public and private partnerships together. Monear’s creative vision, collaborative commitment, and passion for trees have helped to transform the landscapes of North Texas and beyond.

Janette says, “There’s a sorrow because you will never see what I saw, that was so beautiful, until we change some things around. That sorrow is what drives the movement for climate change.”

What is Hunt Sages & Seekers?

July 14, 2021February 16, 2022

Mapping the Social Enterprise Ecosystem: a student’s perspective

Scott Zuo is a student at Southern Methodist University

One of the fantastic opportunities for a select number of student researchers is to work directly with the Executive Director of the Hunt Institute, Dr. Eva Csaky. Our team members engage with the Global Development Lab pillar of the Institute, the Social Enterprise Program (SE), or the Inclusive Economic Consortium (IEC) initiative or work on a cross-cutting communication team. On occasion, there is an overlap with one or more providing an opportunity for team members to be exposed to some of the initiatives in other areas such as the Inclusive Economic Consortium (IEC) and the Social Enterprise Program. Undergraduate Research Analyst Scott Zuo’s work, where the SE and IEC intersect, represents one example of this kind of opportunity.

Beginning in the spring of 2021, Scott has been working with Dr. Csaky and other team members on research involving inclusive economy best practices. Scott’s first project involved building and updating a database of such best practices, using examples based on FinTech Awards and case studies from the IFC and UNDP. Scott and the team analyzed each of these examples through a variety of lenses, including collaboration, building access, sustainability, innovation, and more.

Ultimately, the database aims to serve a variety of purposes. For one, since a similar exercise had been done a few years prior, cases included in the initial database that no longer exist in 2021 represent opportunities for updating with new case studies. Secondly, these best practices can contribute to a global map of the social enterprise ecosystem. The examples also serve as useful models through which a framework can be developed for effective business models in the inclusive economy space.

When asked about his experience working on this project, Scott said, “The analyzing process inspired by Dr. Csaky really improved my ability of critical thinking as well as knowledge related to globalization.”

Improving the student experience at SMU is one of the benefits student workers can lean into when they work in the Institute. Undergraduates and Grad students alike can apply to positions posted on SMU’s HandShake. It is a competitive process to be chosen to join the team due to the high level of interaction student employees have with Affiliates, community partners, and leadership in the Hunt Institute.

Stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest for future updates on this exciting work and other projects with impact. To hear what student employees in the Hunt Institute are saying about their experience >> CLICK HERE.

June 29, 2021February 16, 2022

Valecia Harris, Hunt Institute Social Enterprise Graduate Program Consultant & Manager

Valecia Harris is an MBA candidate at Southern Methodist University in the Cox School of Business, specializing in Strategy and Entrepreneurship. She serves as President of the Graduate Entrepreneurship Club, Vice President of Program Development for Graduate Women in Business Club, and Vice President of Consulting Club Online Master of Business Administration (OMBA) Engagement. She also serves as a member of the Energy Club and a member of the Student Honor Council. Valecia has been recognized as an award recipient for the Cox Legacy and Cox Dean’s Circle Business Leadership Center.

Valecia has 19 years of experience in the captive lending financial service industry. She held several leadership roles at GM Financial Services where she advanced to Assistant Vice President overseeing dealer compliance operations. Her latter position included aligning strategic priorities with the company’s core values while mitigating risk. Valecia was part of several social and rewards and recognition initiatives at GM Financial, such as being a member of the first Diversity and Inclusion Council, implementing corporate initiatives for rewards and recognition employee programs, and performance enhancement development. Valecia’s career has pivoted into the entrepreneurship field. She is a new business owner of a faith-based direct-to-consumer retail business that focuses on fashion and lifestyle products. She was selected as a 2021 finalist for the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation for her extensive leadership skills, contribution, and commitment to supporting the Texas entrepreneurship ecosystem.

At the Hunt Institute, Valecia is the graduate Program Consultant and Manager for the Social Enterprise (SE) program, where she works to develop and scale SE in order to address key barriers faced by early-stage social entrepreneurs, including capacity constraints and a need for strategic guidance, by connecting social entrepreneurs to critical resources.

When asked why Valecia was drawn to the Hunt Institute she responded, “What drew me to the Hunt Institute is the amount of work invested in supporting social entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial initiatives that create, inspire, and influence sustainable and inclusive economic development. I am excited to be part of a team where I can lend my knowledge and experience in developing strategies and supporting innovative solutions that generate transformational impact.”

April 13, 2021February 10, 2022

Illuminating Tintinto | Hunt Institute’s Project for SMU Giving Day 2021

Today is SMU Giving Day – the one day of the year for all Mustangs to come together in support of the SMU causes and students we care about most. Giving day is not about how much we each give, it’s about the impact we can make as a collective. The more Mustangs who give, the more positive change we can create. Donations received are put into a matching program, making all donations even more impactful and appreciated.

For this year’s SMU Giving Day, the Hunt Institute is featuring a Global Development Lab project that is installing solar panels for Tintinto Primary & Secondary School, a school in a remote village in West Africa. The beginning of this pilot proved to be successful and we will be continuing the development of this project. Principal Amadou Kinteh, teachers, parents, and students are pleased with having access to clean energy and are excited to see the completion of this project with the final section of the school illuminated by Summer 2021!

During COVID-19, school administrators reported that having access to electricity created the opportunity for teachers and students to work remotely by having access to charge their cell phones in rotations at the school during the pandemic lockdown. When the schools were able to re-open, the teachers hosted additional tutoring times for students after school to help bridge any gaps that occurred during their absence due to the pandemic. As a result, Principle Kinteh reported that his students excelled in their exams (equivalent to state exams in the USA). Watch him talk about their experiences in the above video.

Mohammed Njie is an SMU student and Hunt Institute Social Entrepreneur who founded Janta Energy to provide sustainable, clean, and reliable energy to The Gambia, a West African country where just 48% of people have limited access to electricity, leaving the remaining 52% with no access. Recently, he published a website for this initiative called JantaGM.com.

In December of 2019, the Tintinto Primary and Secondary School agreed to be a beta test site for Janta’s pilot project. In January of 2020, a team installed five 330-watt 24-volt solar panels, two 250-amp 12-volt solar batteries, and a 50-amp solar charge controller to power four classrooms and a staff room. The pilot was designed to test the panel’s effectiveness as a solution to bring electrical connections for lights, fans, and eventually computers. Although the entire school is not yet powered, Njie has a vision: “As a pilot project, we were limited to installing a [certain] amount of panels. We used those panels to provide 100% energy for half of the school. The idea was that after we did a successful pilot project, then we will install more panels to extend the power to the other side of the school.”

Join us as we prepare to finish installing the necessary panels to complete this project for the Tintinto Primary and Secondary School so that all teachers and students will have access to electricity in their classrooms.

Eventually, Janta will use this concept to build a micro-grid, with the school at the center, to help power the entire village. Looking ahead to the future, Janta Energy seeks to replicate the model used in Tintinto across other rural villages as well, eventually spanning the entirety of the country. You can help make a difference in the lives of Gambians by contributing to the Hunt Institute’s project for SMU Giving Day to finish this pilot project. All proceeds will go toward this project in The Gambia.

April 13, 2021 all day giving day #SMUDayOne resulted in meeting our goal.

Check back for updates as this project progresses!

The Hunt Institute and everyone in the Tintinto Primary & Secondary School appreciates your support for this Global Development Lab project.

February 4, 2021February 28, 2022

Brianna Flores

Brianna Flores is currently pursuing a BFA in Film & Media Arts and a B.A. in Journalism with minors in Arts Management and Photography at SMU, and she is intending to graduate in May of 2023. Brianna is a recipient of the Meadows Artistic Scholarship and Fulton Communication School Scholarship.

On campus, Brianna has been involved as Communications Coordinator for McElvaney Residential Commons and as Student Facilitator for the Emerging Leaders Program, a leadership development program for first-year students. In her spare time, she enjoys her job as a taekwondo instructor and discovering new restaurants in Dallas.

In her role as Undergraduate Videographer at the Hunt Institute, Brianna will be planning and producing a variety of visual content based on the projects and events going on in the Institute.

When asked what about the Institute was appealing to her, she replied that it “not only lets [her] learn about others’ innovative ideas, but also allows [her] to create something powerful with their ideas in order to inform people.”

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.