PSIA Attends William & Mary Biannual Innovation Contest

Posted: July 17, 2023 by Gabriella Bartlett

Following our previous win during the fall 2022 competition, students Gabriella Bartlett, IA '23, Natalie Pippin, IA '23, and Nathanael Hines, pre-Law '24 attended the spring 2023 WMGIC contest. According to the WMGIC website, "WMGIC is a student-led organization that hosts premier case competitions. These events champion interdisciplinary collaboration and mobilize students to tackle global issues. [and] develop solutions with real world applicability and impact."

In a format similar to the fall 2022 event, this time we competed directly with seven teams from four other universities, each team tasked with providing a solution for "Supporting Internally Displaced Climate Refugees in Bangladesh." In addition to the inherent reward of meeting and interacting with fellow international peers, we met with federal analysts and Professors Henry Crossman (Georgetown University) and John Linantud (University of Houston-Downtown), who offered guidance and aid to our proposal.

Our team collaborated and revised its proposal for nine hours, after which we submitted a fully-fledged, three-pronged sustainable solution. The team then had ten minutes to present the team's work to the panel of judges, followed by an additional five minutes to answer questions from the panel. The first prong of the team's proposal sought to utilize the framework already instituted in the government's Ashrayan Project; prong two discussed a collaborative effort between the Bangladeshi government and the World Bank to establish an oversight committee to combat issues of corruption; and prong three discussed implementation of sustainable innovation such as replanting mangrove forests, and floating farms.

According to Gabriella, while the team did not win, "the conference offered an opportunity for us to hone our research skills and provide clear and concise solutions to global problems that we will potentially work on later in our careers. This contest gives us a head start in tackling the problems of tomorrow."