Reflection on CW2 Project: Academic Exercise and Future Development

This reflective report discusses the experiences, difficulties, and learnings from executing project CW2, a group-based assignment. It focuses on the design and planning of a photovoltaic water desalination system for the drought crisis in Somalia. The report highlights the selection of solar energy as the source of energy and the challenges faced during data collection and communication with the Somali community. The report concludes with the importance of teamwork, critical thinking, and sustainable development for achieving global sustainability.

Running Head: REFLECTION 0
IT Report
Reflection
(Student Details :)
12/9/2018

Reflection 1
Reflective Report
This discussion is based on a reflection based on CW2 which was an academic exercise
executed by me and my group as it was a group based assignment. Through reflecting on my
experiences during executing project CW2 I will try to develop my skill set as well as action
plan for the future development. In this way, I will reflect upon difficulties faced, learning,
thoughts, feelings, overall journey, and difficult as well as inspirational aspects of the project
we have done in CW2. I have successfully designed and planned Photovoltaic (PV) water
desalination system with my team for the solution of drought crisis in Somalia nation. Prior to
that project CW2, I have been worked on assessing and researching on Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs)-11, which is about Sustainable Cities and Communities all over
the world. Hence, my team selected East African Famine and Drought Crisis in Somalia as
our research objective as well as provided a solution in the form of PV water desalination
system.
While I was working with my team to research upon the drought crisis in East African region
then I have realised that being a UK resident I have never felt these kinds of difficulties in my
daily life those were faced by Somalia peoples since then. While we were facing difficulties
in selecting the target market of the project CW2 then I decided that we will use Somalia
country as a target market as it seemed a strategic location as well as ideal climate for our
business plan. I was feeling proud on all of my team members as we were about to provide a
solution for critical drought crisis through designing a photovoltaic (PV) farm which powers
a water desalination system where water is acquired from the Indian Ocean and our intentions
were to counter horrific crisis of famine as well as drought (Dash, 2013).
In my opinion, our selection was the water desalination system run by solar energy because
of the reason that when we researched over sustainable cities and communities in SDG-11,
then I realized that there are most of countries in the world where energy is not adequate and
people are suffering from poverty, education, health and many other issues which needs to be
resolved through obtaining sustainability for all. I also realized that our project was not
desired to only benefit the public’s health but it was an attempt to benefit and help the
economy of the nation (Blewitt, 2008).

Reflection 2
During the process of data collection for the project planning for the Somalia country, we
have faced a lot of difficulties include conducting online surveys was a huge challenge foe
my team. The causes behind the challenge were as follows:
 Adverse poverty level of people of Somalia
 Communication barriers
 Education difficulties in Somalia people (Slim, 2012).
 Unwillingness of participating in surveys
 Less awareness about the technology and internet
 Superstitious and out-dated thinking among community of Somalia (Slim, 2012).
In order to manage those difficulties faced by all of us, I suggested that we should outsource
some local educated people for helping us in conducting surveys for the effective planning of
our PV desalination system (Kaygusuz, 2012). Hence, when we executed my idea of hiring
peoples to describe as well as execute surveys in Somalia from the Somalia only then it
worked well. In this way a trust and faith towards me has been developed among my team
members in a way that they started taking my personal advice and confirmation for each and
every big decision during our project (Cui & Fang, 2011). When we were doing surveys
among the peoples of Somalia then I felt that the best part of our research was lying in
clarifying our thoughts about the drought crisis in Somalia as well as needs of those peoples
in detail (Dodds & Venebles, 2008).
Moreover, selection procedure of sourced energy for our engineering innovation product
included a detailed research as well as survey on abundantly available renewable energy
resources in the global market which are still left to be utilized effectively (Kaygusuz, 2012).
Hence, my views on selecting solar energy as the source of energy for water desalination
system were that there is no other fuel exist for the water desalination system which is more
cheaper, accessible and adequately available in this earth. Thus, selecting solar energy was an
important aspect of our business innovation plan (Dresner, 2008).
From the perspective of my personalised and contextualised learning experience, I would like
to quote that my team’s collaborative nature, effective team-work, communication skills,
technical skills, hard work and innovation were the key drivers for executing our business
plan efficiently (Barrow, 2008). Thus, I loved my team and our hard-work along with the
essence of innovative thinking. On the other hand, there were many aspects of the CW2
project which may have been difficult for me and my team include covering almost all of the

Reflection 3
SDGs objectives and then providing solution for the drought crisis of East Africa (Slim,
2012). Dealing with the African people and communicating with them was a difficult aspect
that at some times I felt that we will not be able to complete this project because of those
difficulties when we arrived in Somalia to clarify our thoughts with the people of Somalia
(Slim, 2012). Moreover, there were many aspects of our project which were certainly
inspirational and gave life-long learning include our project was an attempt of making
communities as well as cities sustainable in order to achieve global sustainability in all areas
of SDGs (Bass & Dalal-Clayton, 2012).
In conclusion, reflective practice upon my academic project CW2 gave me learning for my
future career. The learning acquired from this reflection include effective team-work, critical
thinking in problem solving, empathy skills, evaluation and assessment skills, comprehensive
research practice as well as personal skills development. In this way, my journey throughout
the project CW1 and CW2 demonstrating that with the help of critical thinking and hard work
any difficult task can be made easy and possible. Moreover, by making sustainable cities as
well as communities one-by-one, we can obtain sustainability for all by 2030.

Reflection 4
References
Barrow, C.J., 2006. Environmental Management for Sustainable Development. 2nd ed. USA:
Routledge.
Bass, S. & Dalal-Clayton, B., 2012. Sustainable development strategies: a resource book.
London: Routledge.
Blewitt, J., 2008. Understanding Sustainable Development. UK: Earthscan.
Cui, Q. & Fang, D., 2011. Special Issue on Engineering Management for Sustainable
Development. Journal of management in engineering, 28(1), pp.1-1.
Dash, M.C., 2013. Concepts of Environmental Management for Sustainable Development. 1st
ed. U.K.: Module Handbook.
Dodds, R. & Venebles, R., 2008. Engineering for sustainable development: Guiding
Principles. The Royal Academy of Engineers, p.52.
Dresner, S., 2008. The Principles of Sustainability. UK: Earthscan.
Kaygusuz, K., 2012. Energy for sustainable development: A case of developing countries.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16(2), pp.1116-26.
Slim, H., 2012. IASC real-time evaluation of the humanitarian response to the horn of africa
drought crisis in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. [Online] Available at:
https://www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/files/USA-2012-004-1.pdf [Accessed 16 December
2018].

Reflection 5