Traveling to a new continent itself made this trip exciting, but it also influenced the problems we chose to solve, and our proposals. My group was the largest in the MTC 2025 program with 10 people from Chile, Brazil, Germany and the Unites States, which gave us very diverse knowledge and viewpoints. Most of us were foreigners to Chile though, and while we could connect various problems and social norms to our respective homes, having peers from the city and country where we were focusing our work made a big difference.
We were focusing on solving the gap between recycling and the vast excess of recyclable goods- especially clothing- being shipped into Chile every year which is a situation that we in the United States don’t have to face. By listening to our team members who knew the problems firsthand, and combining ideas from vastly different backgrounds, we were able to end the week with a strong pitch on how our solution “The Loop” would help minimize the textile waste accumulating in the Atacama Desert.
Swanson School of Engineering 