DOREEN MASHU: OK.
My name Doreen.
I just graduated as a Sloan Fellow 2018.
I came here from Zimbabwe, and I did an independent study
with Anjali Sastry.
So I had 10 years work experience
in accounting and finance before I came to Sloan.
And I had this passion for agriculture
that stemmed from growing up in Zimbabwe with parents
that were farmers.
So I had done quite a bit of research personally
on agriculture everywhere that I had worked.
And even though I was working in finance,
I tried to make sure that I did some agriculture
work, whether it was mergers and acquisitions or whatever.
I tried to make sure that I infused agriculture
into my work.
So when I got here, I wanted to formalize this passion
and do a bit more in-depth analysis, in-depth research
on this sector and what I wanted to contribute
to it after graduation.
So I did an independent study titled
Innovations Across the Agriculture Value Chain--
An Opportunity for Savvy Entrepreneurs,
because I want to be an entrepreneur in this sector.
So the independent study involved
researching the current value chain, or the traditional value
chain as it is, and then interviewing
different stakeholders to figure out where opportunities
are for innovation.
And that's what I worked on with Anjali.
So I started out with some questions
that I wanted to answer, or some hypotheses, and the main one
was the fact that there is a big opportunity
to do value addition.
And so to move farmers from the traditional farming
and raw material production to actual processing of items,
of consumer goods, whether it's juice or personal care items.
Anything that can be produced from excess agricultural
produce.
So my hypothesis was that everybody on the table
would agree with the statement, that that is the only way
to move farmers or rural communities
from poverty to prosperity.
And that's where most of the investments
should be going forward.
So I started with that question, and so when
I interviewed stakeholders, I interviewed farmers.
I interviewed business people.
I interviewed development organizations.
And asked questions that questioned or poked on that
hypothesis, or supported it.
And the response was actually what I expected,
which is it's true that that is where
everybody thinks that the investment should
be focused on.
It's just a matter of changing some existing mental models
that keep both farmers and investors in this sector stuck
in and doing things as they've always been done.
I looked at all the things that I was interested in,
things that I was passionate about,
but that I wasn't necessarily addressing through my MBA
classes at Sloan.
And so agriculture stood out.
And then within agriculture I looked
at what was related to my startup, which
is what I'm hoping to work on now that I've graduated.
And so it was easy to narrow down a topic,
because I wanted something that was
aligned with my startup and my interests.
Managing the work and myself was probably the most difficult.
I think, like I said, because I had
done some research on the topic without really having
any plans of using it in any formal way,
I underestimated the time it would take to actually come up
with something meaningful.
And I like to talk--
I'm a people person.
So I enjoyed the interviewing part,
and I kept gathering information and gathering information,
and talking to people more than the people I had on my list.
But then when it came to gathering the insight
and writing, what I had done and why I had done it
and what the next steps are, it was of difficult.
And also I had a full course load,
because I spent all of my IAP doing this research.
And so I didn't take any other classes or any units
that I needed towards graduation.
So in the spring, everything was due.
The independent study, all the courses, and all of that.
So it was difficult, but I worked with Anjali a lot
in trying to figure out how I needed to craft the paper.
And so we did a few iterations of that.
She actually is very hands-on.
So she'll take positive notes write--
this first section could be this, do you agree?
What are you trying to get from that?
So she pushed me a bit and ask me
questions that helped me figure out the structure of the paper.
And also the time I would spend on each section,
and what was more important and what was less important.
And how I can show that I actually
did the work, because doing the work
and actually reporting the work is quite different.
But in the end, it worked, definitely with Anjali's help,
and working extra hours.
So I think this experience was interesting for me,
because I ended up using frameworks
in the independent study that I think are unique to Sloan.
So for example, I used systems thinking, which is obviously
a big thing here at Sloan.
And also things around sustainability
and sustainability-oriented innovation, which MIT
is a champion in.
So I think that being in this environment helped
with the framework I was going to use
and the way I was writing this paper.
Entrepreneurship is also big at MIT,
so that's why I even wanted to be
an entrepreneur after a 10-year career in finance.
So I think all of those things went together
to help me produce this independent study.
I do think, however, it's just--
yes, for me it was MIT, but for anyone else
it could be anything, right?
It's just a matter of figuring out
what you have in your own ecosystem,
and then using that to your advantage.
Also, in addition to being a Sloan Fellow,
I'm a Legatum fellow, which is--
Legatum is a center here at MIT for entrepreneurship
and development.
And it supports 20 Fellows per year
that wants to work in the developing
world after graduation.
So it's everybody from PhDs in engineering to undergraduates.
And so I came here through a scholarship
from the Legatum foundation.
So I knew coming in that I wanted
to be an entrepreneur in the developing world after Sloan.
And my startup idea is in agriculture,
so it's another part of what created this independent study.
I knew some people that I interviewed--
some stakeholders that I interviewed through Legatum,
and then approaching them as a Legatum Fellow,
it made sense that I was doing this agriculture paper.
So it helped me talk to people that I probably would have
a hard time reaching out to.
Anjali also brought in her contacts for people
that I needed to interview, so that was helpful as well.
And the name MIT was helpful as well, so
to link back to the ecosystem, right?
So reaching out to someone and saying, hey,
I'm a student at MIT and I'm studying
this topic was, I think, helpful for people
to open up their doors and resources and such.
I just came from a conference last week after graduation.
I went straight to a conference at the World Bank,
and I think everybody's questioning this idea of
is technology a good solution?
And if so, how should we be using it,
and how do we really get these rural communities to prosper?
And there's a lot actually in between farming seasons, right?
So a farming season could be just three months,
and then you add the preparation time, which
is another couple of months.
And then farmers are going from cycle to cycle,
and their conditions are not really improving.
So people are questioning why that
is happening, and we what we need to do more of, or less of.
So I think it's an exciting sector,
because I think that the whole world is
worried about food security.
The whole world is worried about climate change,
which is linked to agriculture.
So I think it's a hot topic.
It's just people need to figure out-- everybody needs
to be on board in terms of figuring out
what needs to be done.
Because on one hand, you have people
that are investing in more production of food
so that we have food security, but then is
that food distributed equally?
That remains to be seen.
And then on the other hand, there's
all this talk about climate change
and what farmers should be doing or not be doing,
and there are all these technologies that people
are coming up with, but are they being co-created
with the communities?
Probably not.
So uptake of those technologies is slower than people think.
So there are all of these topics, all of these loose ends
that need to be figured out.
And I think that's why it's exciting for me to be in,
and hopefully I can figure out a small part of it.