This week, we conclude our 6 weeks here in CDMX. It has been such an incredible experience, and I am so grateful to have worked with some of the most talented scholars from across the world, from such diverse yet such interesting backgrounds. It has changed my perspective on the programme, my university experience, and has really shaped me as a Laidlaw Scholar, and as a future leader.
This week was a lot of concluding documentation. Some of the activities this week included:
- Final exit report, as a group
- Final individual exit report
- Impact report
- Pitch to Genera Territorios
- Pitch to experts in the field, including Oxfam Mexico representatives
Starting with our pitch, we had around 4.5 hours with our organisation, discussing all of our deliverables, including our chat bot, our documentation, our user/transfer guides, our conversation flows, our character profile for IzCalli (the chat bot), as well as a run-through of our initial prototype with the organisation. We were delighted that Genera Territorios loved our pitch, our ideas, and they were so welcoming and all the information felt very well-received.
When we pitched to the other representatives/field experts, we were thrilled to hear that Oxfam Mexico wants to continue the exploration of this idea, potentially rolling our idea out in another city, Oaxaca. This is such a promising sentiment, and I am so happy to hear that we are truly making impact within the rural community of not just CDMX, but Mexico as a whole. Thank you so much to Peter, Eve, and Annie for making the best team - it would not have been possible without you guys!
Here is us doing our pitch to the charity, the slide in the background from our pitch is all about IzCalli, her profile as a chat-bot, and how we came to create her. Thank you to Eve for working super hard on this!
Our exit reports are currently in the making. It's nice to have both a collaborative and individual reflection on everything, how it all went - and how we are going to use these skills that we have picked up here in Mexico moving forward, within our professional and personal endeavours.
Once again, a massive thank you to make_sense, Durham University, The Laidlaw Foundation, and everyone here who I met in Mexico. <3