New Virtual Climate Entrepreneurial Exchange Program

A new Climate Entrepreneurship Exchange program will allow University of Michigan students to collaborate with students from around the world to solve climate-related problems. Throughout the eight-week program, students will work together to create a concept for a climate startup that culminates in an investment pitch to program mentors. Members from the top two teams will be selected to travel for a weeklong immersion program — the Michigan-based team members will travel to Morocco and the North Africa-based team members to Michigan.

This is the third virtual exchange organized by the U-M William Davidson Institute, a nonprofit organization committed to providing tools to students to shape their economies for the better made possible by a grant from the Stevens Initiative. The first two exchanges were the MENA-Michigan Initiative for Global Action Through Entrepreneurship and the Business & Culture programs. This cohort-style opportunity allows students from the University’s Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses to collaborate with students from Eastern Michigan University, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, as well as with the American University in Cairo; ESCA School of Management in Casablanca, Morocco and Benghazi Youth for Technology and Entrepreneurship in Benghazi, Libya.

Amy Gillett, vice president of the education sector at WDI, explained in an interview with The Michigan Daily how the program will work.

“The students (will) learn both through online modules that they can take at their own pace, as well as weekly webinars that we host,” Gillett said. “We hope as many people as possible will join in real time, but they will also be recorded, giving them the content, the skills, putting them in small teams, assigning them to mentors to facilitate that team work. And in the end, they will come up with a climate venture and pitch it.”

Gillett said participating in the program benefits students in a way similar to study abroad programs.

“It is very global, and yet you can do it from home, and you can make these important connections, both social connections and also long-term business connections,” Gillett said. “From our exchange programs, we know that students will stay connected to teammates and others in the program and sometimes will go visit them on their own time, or will continue to pursue business opportunities with them.”

Business senior Makenzie Kulczycki, was a participant in the Business & Culture virtual exchange program in 2023. During her program, students from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business collaborated with students from Egypt, Lebanon and Libya on a consulting research project. She told The Daily that the program exposed her to other perspectives that influenced the way she sees global business.

“It was a very eye-opening experience, a very humbling experience too, because I feel like before this class, I really hadn’t traveled much out of the country or had interacted with people in other countries where they speak different languages and come from different religions and different traditions and things like that,” Kulczycki said. “And so this really prepared me, honestly, to go study abroad, which I did twice.”

LSA senior Stephanie Smith, a recently admitted applicant to the Climate Entrepreneurial Exchange program, said she hopes to learn about climate change solutions from new perspectives.

“I thought this was a really cool opportunity to learn from students and other stakeholders at other really great institutions, (to) sort of break out of that bubble to understand what people are doing to address climate change and energy challenges around the world outside of our campus,” Smith said.

Smith explained that the program connects with her sustainable development career goals through its community engagement aspect.

“I’m really interested in learning within a framework about how best to engage with communities around the world and what we can learn from each other, and so (I’m) kind of starting to set that framework now within the context of school to then carry it over into my career,” Smith said.

Kulczycki believes for future Virtual Exchange students to be successful, they need to step out of the norms that surround group projects at the University and focus on building connections.

“Honestly, I feel like in the U.S., at Michigan, whenever we do group projects, it’s very much like your only goal is to get the work done,” Kulczycki said. “Usually, there’s not a lot of small talk, people don’t really care what you’re doing that day, they just want to get the work done and leave. I recommend (getting) to know the students you’re working with, get to know what their typical day looks like, what holidays they celebrate … because when you understand someone, and you understand what they’re going through, I think you just get a richer experience out of the whole process.”

Daily Staff Reporter Elizabeth Stafford can be reached at [email protected].

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