Arpan Patel

This week was spent mostly meeting as group for three hours (3 team meetings) to first outline our final report and divide it up individually, and then practice our final presentation for Wednesday. My job was to work on the premise of our project, and reflect on how the organization has changed in purpose, activity and structure over the course of the semester, and also summarize our report in the executive summary. I spent about 6 hours doing this, which included drafting and editing.

This week we spent 3 hours meeting as a group to work on our final presentation slides, which consisted of consolidation information from our previous presentations and adding our reflections on how our business has evolved over the course of the semester. I spent about 3 hours in class, listening and giving feedback on other team presentations. I spent 6 hours on my own working on the final presentation and starting the final report.

This week we spent 2 hours meeting as a group, to prepare for our Team Journey presentation as well as work on the final slides for our presentation. I also spent about four hours on my own, working on my slides for the Team Journey presentation, as well as researching the final portions of our project. I spent about 3 hours in class this week.

This week we met twice as a group for a total of 3 hours, and went to class twice for another 3 hours total. This week, I worked on the Business model for our presentation on 4/15. My job was to work on the business plan specifically, and research the variety of income, cost and critical success factors for our organization. It was tough to get up to speed on the financial model and all of its elements, but I relied on the textbook as well online resources to determine how financially viable our organization would be. I spent approximately 9 hours working on the business plan as well as preparing for our presentation on Wednesday.

These past two weeks, we spent 4.5 hours in class. One of the class days was replaced by a project workday. In class, we presented our Prototype presentation, learned about metrics and accountability, learned about what it means to define an organizations culture and structure, and presented on both of those as well. Our group met a total of 3 times in these past two weeks to work on both the Metrics and the Org Culture/Structure presentation. Outside of group work I individually worked on our project.

This week I spent 3 hours in class, learning about the variety of metrics that can be used to track a business's performance. It was definitely interesting to learn about how the metrics used to evaluate a social enterprise differ from those of a pure profit venture. In terms of our group work, we met twice for a total of 2 hours, and outside of class I worked on the Prototype for our business. This included a retrofitted website that we would potentially use to provide nutritional information and recipes for our customers, as well as a model for the mobile food stands. We worked as a group to put this model in a presentation.

This week had substantially more work and time invested into our project than the last one. Like last week, I spent 3 hours in class working on my group project, and learning about the components of the marketing presentation. Our group met for 2 hours this past week to plan out individual tasks for the Marketing Plan, and then work on the Marketing plan. Outside of class I spent close to 10 hours first working on the research for the marketing presentation. I worked on creating the marketing validation survey, and the research for the purpose of our social enterprise's marketing. I also spent time working with my group outside of our meetings, to put together our presentation and complete the marketing plan.

This week, I spent 3 hours in class learning about how to craft a mission, vision and overall direction for my organization. I also spent time planning my Pain/Problem presentation. Outside of class, our group met twice for 2 hours, planning what would go into our presentation, putting together our slides and consolidating our research. Outside of class I spent about 5 hours doing my part of the presentation slides, conducting more research on the nature of food insecurity in the US and the Austin area, and practicing my presentation.

Over these past two weeks, I have spent 8 hours in class, listening to the guest lectures of Mort Meyerson who spoke about his experience at 2M and a career filled with corporate social responsibility. Another guest lecture was that of JP Klonninger, who spoke about his work with the Whole Earth Foundation. Both of these guest lectures were very inspirational, as I got to learn more about the real world of social entrepreneurship. We also spent class time working with our teams, and also learning about Fast Pitches. Outside of class, we have had two meetings with our team project, in which we've conducted further research and preparation for our first presentation.

Met with Kylie Tran working on the ideation process for our project. Came up with an idea to do a sustainable food kitchen to empower community health. Spent class time learning more about the structure and foundations behind a social impact startup. Played the Food Truck Simulation in class and also conducted several ideation activities in class. Outside of class I conducted research on ideas for the team project and also did the assigned class readings.