Our project originated as part of the University of Texas at Austin’s 2020-2021 President’s Award for Global Learning (PAGL) competition and our initial funding was received as finalists of the competition. The President’s Award empowers students to live up to the university motto, “What Starts Here Changes the World,” by providing student-faculty teams the opportunity and the funding to devise interdisciplinary solutions to real-world challenges on the global stage. The PAGL program facilitates cross-cultural knowledge exchange and is the quintessential example of meaningful collaboration put into practice.
Our team of four undergraduate students, one graduate student, and three faculty advisors comes from six of the university’s colleges and our undergraduate team alone represents 10 different majors.
Five winning teams out of 33 proposals submitted by 128 students representing 10 colleges and 82 faculty representing 15 colleges underwent several rounds of competition to receive project funding from the President’s Award. The awarded projects’ work spans across three continents with partnerships in Jordan, India, Singapore, Jamaica, and Mexico.
Information about the other winning teams can be found here.
