My name is Megan Koevoet and I am a student at the University of Calgary currently pursuing a Bachelor Degree in German Studies.

During orientation week in the the Fall of 2017 I was lucky enough to stumble upon a booth that had a big light bulb on it with the title Global Challenges. Once I got there I had a lovely conversation with Lisa who told me about the wicked challenge of how to feed nine billion people by the year 2050. Is it corny of me to say that moment completely changed my university experience? Because it did.

In the UNIV 201 and 203, I looked into food waste in Canada, researching all the different dimensions, including where the food is coming from, where it’s going, how it’s being used, and what is being wasted where. Can we make it illegal to waste food? (yes). Has that been done before? (also yes). What is Canada doing about it?

In UNIV 401, I did a bit of a 180 and switched to farming, and how to Help Small Farms Grow. This block week course was one crazy adventure. Each of the five days had a theme being followed, problem identification, empathy, ideation, prototyping and testing. One of the most important thing this week was to trust the process. Every step taken towards the innovation was important and essential for us to move forward.

The most significant thing I learned in this course would be that before you can solve the problem you have to ask every question you can, without seeking the answers.  This will help you figure out what the problem is, if it’s even a problem in the first place, who it effects, how it effects them and so on. Once you’ve exhausted your question asking ability then you’re ready to move on with trying to solve the problem.