{"id":1188,"date":"2012-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericaleeconsulting.com\/engineering-for-social-inclusion-in-buenos-aires\/"},"modified":"2012-05-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T04:00:00","slug":"engineering-for-social-inclusion-in-buenos-aires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/engineering-for-social-inclusion-in-buenos-aires\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering for social inclusion in Buenos Aires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few months after my <a title=\"What I learned in the jungle\" href=\"https:\/\/elcold.piweb.site\/\/2012\/02\/06\/what-i-learned-in-the-jungle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">epiphany in the jungle<\/a>, I was looking around for the right opportunity to put my idea to leverage my professional skills for social good into action.<\/p>\n<p>I was honoured to be offered the opportunity to help out with Waste for Life as a volunteer Project Manager. \u00a0 I was to help implement what Eric Feinblatt and Caroline Baillie, the project&#8217;s co-founders had designed and developed. \u00a0Check out their website\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/wasteforlife.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/wasteforlife.org\/<\/a>\u00a0for notes on their journey. \u00a0It&#8217;s amazing what strong ideals and determination can accomplish.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recycling, co-operativism and poverty reduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Waste for Life as a whole seeks to &#8216;develop poverty-reducing solutions to specific ecological problems&#8217;, through collaboration amongst educators, co-operatives, students and professionals. \u00a0My contribution to the project would involve overseeing the implementation of a simple Hotpress to a recycling co-operative on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. \u00a0From my Jan 2012 <a href=\"http:\/\/engineeringdimensions.digitalityworks.com\/issues\/2012\/JanFeb\/issue.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">article <\/a>in the Professional Engineers Ontario&#8217;s Engineering Dimensions Magazine:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a volunteer project manager for educational non-profit organization Waste for Life,\u00a0Erica Lee oversaw the implementation of a simple manufacturing process in a recycling\u00a0co-operative in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The project\u2019s most important deliverables\u00a0were non-technical: social inclusion, democratization of knowledge, and access to the<br \/>\nability to alleviate poverty through strategic use of technology and entrepreneurship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A few months after giving them my &#8216;yes&#8217;, I was on a plane to Buenos Aires to check things out. \u00a0In the end I spent 5.5 months on the ground in Argentina, overseeing the delivery of the press to the co-operative, developing relationships with sellers, designing a manufacturing process, designing and implementing the business process (from product design to manufacturing to selling and managing the income), but most importantly, preparing the local team and project members for entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n<p>For a more detailed explanation of my time on the project, check out the entire article \u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/elcold.piweb.site\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/e_lee_wfl.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Engineering for social inclusion in Buenos Aires<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I am extremely proud to say that, less than 2 months after the press was delivered to the co-operative (which was March 18 2010), the team sold their <a href=\"http:\/\/wasteforlife.org\/?p=1126\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">first products<\/a> at a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.feriapurodiseno.com.ar\/12\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ritzy design fair <\/a>in Buenos Aires. \u00a0Then they secured a contract with the local municipality to make <a href=\"http:\/\/wasteforlife.org\/?p=1138\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">garbage cans<\/a>\u00a0for the conversation areas. \u00a0 This week they are prototyping a <a href=\"http:\/\/wasteforlife.org\/?p=1206\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new product<\/a>, and Waste for Life has plans to expand to include other co-operatives.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While I am proud of my track record saving millions of dollars for companies by helping them systematically identify sources of waste and non-value-added activity, the personal satisfaction I derived from providing the opportunity for these people to transform their lives made it without question the best experience of my career to date. \u00a0 I also learned so much, and I look forward to the chance to further explore themes of local economic development, entrepreneurship and social enterprise. \u00a0Great things are possible when people put their heads and hearts together!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few months after my epiphany in the jungle, I was looking around for the right opportunity to put my idea to leverage my professional skills for social good into action. I was honoured to be offered the opportunity to help out with Waste for Life as a volunteer Project Manager. \u00a0 I was to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,10,12],"tags":[122,125,131,132,133,134,130,135],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-insight-and-inspiration","category-projects","tag-collaboration","tag-international-development","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-recycling","tag-social-entrepreneurship","tag-startup","tag-volunteering","tag-waste-for-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}