“This project started well over a year ago,” explained Alex Chamberlain, UVU Enactus student, “as an Enactus project in partnership with an entrepreneurial training program in Brazzaville called Entraide, which was started by Vulcain Yengo. Originally, Enactus went down to the Congo and did a needs-analysis. They realized that the problem in the Congo is that the business environment is oversaturated. A lot of people do the same thing, so there’s a lot of supply with stagnant demand. Last year, the team found a man named Anabelle who owned a cell phone charging station. He ran it off a gas generator when the power went down, because the power supply in the Congo is pretty sporadic. It’s pretty common for people to own two cell phones. It’s strange to think of that here, but in the Congo they’ll leave one phone at home to charge and take the second one with them.”

Last year, the Enactus team traveled to the Congo to improve Anabelle’s kiosk by making it solar-powered. The gas generator was loud, expensive, not environmentally friendly, and wasn’t mobile. The solar-powered kiosk improved all of that, and allowed Anabelle to travel to his customers.

“We went down this year with a plan to establish a Lean manufacturing plant. Lean is a methodology of manufacturing that aims to eliminate waste, reduce excess inventory, improve the quality of the product, and ultimately to flow value to the customer. It makes the manufacturing process of these kiosks more efficient, you can build higher quality kiosks, and in the long run it’s a lot less expensive. We wanted to introduce and train these individuals so that they could implement the processes and improve on their own.”

By the time the team got to Brazzaville, a small manufacturing plant in the back of Entraide had already built nine additional kiosks. Members of the Enactus team that went was Alex Chamberlain, Peter Gregory, Beau Bennett, and faculty advisors Tom Macdonald and Vance Gough. The team spent four days teaching over 40 individuals Lean manufacturing principles, and then applying those principles to kiosk construction.

“We had all these individuals come to Entraide, in a classroom that was made to hold 25 people, and we had more than 50 people crammed into a room. It was hot, and with the close quarters you’d think people would just be miserable—but they weren’t. They were on the edge of their seats, and loved what was being taught. They were really engaged. The coolest thing to me is not only were they paying attention and learning, but they were taking notes. I’d ask if anyone had any questions, and one individual said, ‘Oh, I actually went home and researched a little bit. I learned about this principle, could you explain more about that?’ I was just blown away that they had gone home and continued this learning on their own. It was amazing to see that they were so committed and so involved with what we were teaching.”

“On top of teaching the basic Lean framework, we wanted to improve their current kiosk design. The original wiring process was okay, but it was a little disorganized. They also weren’t building every kiosk the same way, which isn’t ideal for a Lean process. Peter Gregory created a standardized wiring process to improve that aspect of the design. It uses less wire so it’s less expensive, and it’s a lot neater. The overall quality of their manufacturing process also wasn’t great. We had them rearrange the order of their processes. First we wrote down every process on a Post-it Note. Then we looked for places where we could make things more efficient, and then we implemented it. We did that on a Tuesday night, and we came back the next morning and all the Post-it notes were gone. I was bummed because I wanted to get some solid pictures of our work to carry on with, but I got over it. We did our training in the morning, and then in the afternoon we went to start implementing in the back. We walked in, and they had taken the Post-it notes and placed them on the kiosk. They had made their own process. At that point I knew that they had it figured out; they had really internalized the lessons. That’s what we were hoping to accomplish—we wanted them to own this. Those were two examples of what we wanted to help them see. We can take a way of doing something, and even though it’s working, we can make it better.”

Sustainability is a big factor in Enactus projects. Entraide was provided with Lean training materials to allow them to continue the training effort.

“We’re not lifting them out of poverty. When I was initially thinking about this, that’s what I thought we were doing. We’re providing the knowledge and skills so that they can support themselves. That’s what has a lasting impact.”

“The cultural experience of being able to go to this wonderful place where the people were just amazing. It was cool to be totally immersed in the culture there. These people were so welcoming, especially at Entraide. From the moment we got there we felt that they were just incredibly hospitable.”

The Enactus team will present the work of their project at the national competition held the first week of May. The team will have 17 minutes to present before a panel of judges made up of CEO’s and VP’s from Fortune 500 companies. After their presentation, the judges will have three minutes for Q&A. Questions range from “What have you done to make this sustainable?” to “How are you going to protect the intellectual property to make sure no one copies you?”

“We’d love to take first, and we’re really motivated to do our very best at the competition. I think more than anything it’s been fun to work on these projects. Competition is a lot of fun and provides cool opportunities, but when it really comes down to it, the coolest part has been to work with individuals in Enactus.”

“I feel like Enactus has been the perfect pairing with my education. Enactus is one great way to get real world experience with the things you’re learning in your classes. Before I was involved with Enactus, I don’t know if I was really involved with anything here at UVU. I came, I enjoyed the classes I was in, but there wasn’t anything I felt driven to do outside of that. When I joined Enactus, it provided me with a group of individuals who had similar interests. We all have different talents and interests in the sense of our various degree paths or the things that we like to do, but we’re all there for the same general purpose and that was pretty cool. I think being surrounded by people who are dedicated and willing to work on these types of projects has been a great opportunity.”

“I think that being able to find something your passionate about and drives you is really important. A lot of times we think that we’re here at school to go through the motions and get past all of this to step into our career, and that’s when we’ll realize stuff that we enjoy. But I think now is part of our career. I think when you can find things to step outside of yourself and to learn more about, it helps you discover more about yourself. I’m really grateful for Enactus and its mission. It allows college students around the globe to work on projects bigger than themselves. When it comes down to it, I took a class this semester and I’m involved with this awesome program at UVU, but it’s really the work of many individuals that comes together and culminates to help others out.”