Trash to Treasure – Third Session of Design Studio

On February 23, we welcomed a few new Venturers and continued designing and making Trash to Treasure creations. As you can see, the youth Venturers demonstrated creativity, diligence and teamwork.  Click on thumbnails to enlarge photos.

Trash to Treasure – Second Session of Design Studio

On February 16th, we welcomed a few new Venturers and continued designing and making Trash to Treasure creations. As you can see, the youth Venturers demonstrated creativity, diligence and teamwork.  Click on thumbnails to enlarge photos.

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Eshaan leading youth to make duct tape wallents

Akhil making duct tape wallet

Eshaan and Arjun making duct tape wallet

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Swati teaching youth to make flowers from plastic spoons

Yarn jumping rope

Krishna and Pavitra

Colorful duct tape wallet

Eshaan and Arjun making duct tape wallet

Colorful duct tape wallet

Flower bouquets from duct tape

Flower bouquets from duct tape

Pen, pencil and smartphone holder by Aryan

Pen, pencil and smartphone holder by Aryan

New item – origami stars by Neel

Pen, pencil and smartphone holder by Aryan

Pen, pencil and smartphone holder by Aryan

origami stars by Neel

origami stars by Neel

origami stars by Neel

origami stars by Neel

Pavitra and origami star

Pen, pencil and smartphone holder by Aryan

Making a t-shirt into a hand bag

Making a t-shirt into a hand bag

Here is another possible Trash to Treasure creation we could make – necklace made from rolled magazine paper. The individual pieces of colored jewelry are simply strips of magazine paper cut into tapered strips, rolled up tightly, glued, painted and then strung together. We could also make them without painting the rolled magazine strips, especially if the strips contain colored pages.

Trash to Treasure – First Session of Design Studio

We started our February 9th’s Venture meeting by capturing more feedback for our Trash to Treasure creations from families visiting HTW.  Another item seemed to hold special appeal for the families who viewed our creations – Swati’s beautiful flowers (made from plastic spoons and nail polish and bits of fabric) which can be seen below. Click on photos to enlarge.

Next, we turned our meeting into an Art & Design Studio. Some of us started making multiple copies of our collective “Favorites” –  duct tape wallet, duct tape pen and pencil holder, coat hanger head-gear, string and glue lamp holder, T-shirt bag – while others created new items – coat hanger sun-glasses, duct tape flower bouquet on a pen, coat hanger bird-feeder.

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As you clearly see in the many photographs below, the youth collaborated beautifully to make their creations. They formed teams and worked harmoniously and diligently to create their Trash to Treasure crafts. It was wonderful to see the youth all so enthusiastically engaged and working so effectively together. A big thanks to the parents who stayed for the full session to support the youth. And a big thanks to the mentors – Latha, Jesal, Arjun, and Srini – for supporting the youth. Click on photos to enlarge.

In addition, Vaishnav lead a group of Venturers to create our banner using recycled materials. He first drew the pattern for the banner on a piece of paper, then found a variety of recycled materials to form the letters to spell “VENTURE”. What a great way to communicate our Trash to Treasure creativity when we sell our Trash to Treasure items at Holi Festival on March 16th! Click on photos to enlarge.

Trash to Treasure Gains Momentum, part 2

After much discussion the youth Venturers decided that to help us decide which Trash to Treasure creations we would select to make multiple copies as a team, we should get input from members of the HTW regarding which if the many Trash to Treasure creations they would most likely purchase. To this end, we invite the members of the HTW Youth Club and the parents of Venture participants to inspect the many Trash to Treasure creations and give us their feedback.

We tallied their votes for their favorite items and arrived at the following “favorite” items:

We will get feedback from more HTW families this Sunday during the noon time meal service.  After combining all of the feedback on the “favorite” items, we will work together as a team in subsequent Sunday meetings to make many copies of this “favorite” items to sell during Holi Festival on March 16th, 2014.  However, Venture members are invited to make any of the items we considered to sell at our Venture table during Holi Festival, even if their item was not selected as a “favorite.”  We will simply make multiple copies of the “favorite” items as a team during Sunday Venture meetings. This way, we encourage diversity in creativity and at the same time focus on the items that are most likely to sell the most, based on feedback from HTW families.

Vaishnav has agreed to lead us in creating a banner for Venture to display at future Venture meetings and during public events such as our Trash to Treasure sale during Holi Festival on March 16th. Here he shows us his idea for using two high-quality shopping bags taped together to make a durable and attractive banner that even includes handles! Vaishnav will coordinate our effort to use as much recyclable materials as possible to spell out our “Venture, Trash to Treasure” on this banner. Already, Swati has agreed to make more of her beautiful rose flower petals from plastic spoons to spell out part of our banner. Megha’s rolled up magazine strips and Annanya’s paper clip necklace are also promising materials to use for our banner.

Rolled up magazine strips for making jewelry

Rose flower petals made from plastic spoons

Necklace made from paper clips

Trash to Treasure Gains Momentum

During our February 2nd Venture meeting, the young Venturers amazed us with their creative Trash to Treasure creations which they brought to show and tell. Take a look at the diversity of creative and artistic talent! Click on thumbnails to enlarge.

Rose flower petals made from plastic spoons

Rose flower petals made from plastic spoons

Scarf / necklace made from t-shirt

Scarf / necklace made from t-shirt

Scarf / necklace made from t-shirt

Necklace made from t-shirt

Necklace made from paper clips

Over the shoulder bag made from t-shirt

Over the shoulder bag made from t-shirt

Pencil and pen holder made from cardboard covered by patterned duct tape

Pencil and pen holder made from cardboard covered by patterned duct tape

Pencil and pen holder made from cardboard covered by patterned duct tape

Pencil and pen holder made from cardboard covered by patterned duct tape

All purpose container made from shoe box

All purpose container made from shoe box

Candle holder and holder of other things made from CD’s

Candle holder and holder of other things made from CD’s

Candle holder and holder of other things made from CD’s

Dish/bowl made from Bollywood CD

Super soaker from spray top and soda bottle

Duct tape wallet and hair bow

Duct tape wallet

Super soaker made from Windex spray head and soda bottle

Pen and pencil holder made from wire and coat hanger wire

Pen and pencil holder made from wire and coat hanger wire

Pen and pencil holder made from wire and coat hanger wire

Frame for headwear made from coat hanger wire – just add a covering to make a hat

Frame for headwear made from coat hanger wire – just add a covering to make a hat

Tiara made from coat hanger wire

Rolled up magazine strips for making jewelry

Rolled up magazine strips for making jewelry

Plant container made from New Year’s celebration hat

Automatic watering device made from water bottle

Automatic watering device made from water bottle

Holiday wreath made from plastic bags

Light holder or other decorative device made from string and home-made glue

Origami star

Origami puppet that can also serve as a cap

Origami puppet that can also serve as a cap

Trash to Treasure and Vegetable/Herb Garden Projects

The youth Venturers decided to pursue two projects. One is turning Trash to Treasure which entails up-cycling recyclable and trash materials into useful and artistic creations and selling their creations at the upcoming Holi Festival on March 16th at HTW. The other project, Vegetable/Herb Garden, is to grow herbs and vegetables organically using the unused garden at HTW and also at the homes of Venturers. We hope to grow those herbs and vegetables that will be of interest to HTW families. In the near future, we will take a survey of HTW families to determine specifically which herbs and vegetable interest them.

During our meeting January 26th, several youth Venturers demonstrated their creativity by transforming Trash to Treasure. Sanjana Ramchandran showed us beautiful bangles made from cardboard and colored duct tape and beautiful gift boxes made from colored paper.

Maya Kuruvanka showed us a large artistic and practical paper mache bowl made from newspaper and homemade glue.

Annanya Chaturvedi showed a very stylish and useful hand-bag made from an old shirt and colored duct tape.

Vaishnav showed us a clever way to make a handy and attractive plant watering device from a juice bottle. Please see the attached photos of these wonderful creative and artistic examples of turning Trash into Treasure.

Because Holi Festival is coming up soon, our entire Venture team will work together over the next few weeks to focus on the Trash to Treasure project. We will decide at our next Venture meeting Sunday, Feb 2nd which specific Trash to Treasure creations we will make as a group to sell at Holi Festival.

Our subsequent meetings during February and March will be dedicated to making many copies of the specific Trash to Treasure creations we will have decided on Sunday, Feb 2nd. We will in effect operate as a small artist studio during these meetings. And we will meet every Sunday in February and March until March 16th to make many high quality copies of our Trash to Treasure creations for sale at Holi Festival.

We also need Venturers to create an original tag which contains our Venture logo and a few sentences describing who we are and our Trash to Treasure project. These tags would be attached to each of our Trash to Treasure creations and can be highly effective in making our Trash to Treasure creations more attractive to buyers. We also need Venturers to create a banner to display at our booth during Holi Festival.

We also watched three videos featuring remarkable innovators and innovations. The first video came from Rajendher Ji and featured over 30 examples of Jugaad or frugal innovation from India. Jugaad has become an innovation process studied by many top corporations around the world because of its cost effectiveness. We also saw a most inspiring video of the “Land-Philharmonic”, a group of youth who formed an extraordinary orchestra in Paraguay using musical instruments made out of trash salvaged in the nearby town trash landfill. Watching the sheer brilliance and dedication of the instrument makers and the youth musicians brought tears to my eyes.

” Landfill Harmonic reveals a mind-boggling, inventive effort to change that – musical instruments made from trash. In the barrios of Paraguay, a humble garbage picker uses his ingenuity to craft instruments out of recycled materials – and a youth orchestra is born. Music arises and children find new dreams. “

Tin water pipe, metal bottle caps, plastic buttons, metal spoon and fork handles. Tito Romero, maker

Metal Glue cannister, fork, used strings, recycled wood and tunning pegs. Nicolas “Cola” Gomez, maker

Finally, we saw a video of a young inventor, Vinay Venkatraman, in India who transformed simple alarm clocks into advanced medical diagnostic devices to alleviate the crushing workload of primary health care workers in rural India. Again, such inspiring creativity and compassion!

New Year for Venture

On January 12th, 2014 we welcomed a new year for Venture Program with several improvements. We will provide more structured guidance for the youth and focus on two main streams of activities – 1) a series of simpler philanthropic ventures which can be completed within a few weeks and 2) a series of more complex philanthropic ventures that can be completed over several months. We will pursue both streams to give more options for the youth in Venture. We will also introduce the Venture youth to inspirational young innovators from across the globe via short video segments and slide presentations.

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During our January 12th Venture meeting, we showed two highly inspirational videos of inventors – Richard Turere, a teenager and Krista Donaldson, a CEO of a design firm – who used their creative character and capability to invent very useful products to make their communities better. Richard invented a LED light system to protect his family livestock from lion attacks and also in doing so protected the lions from being killed.

 

Krista demonstrated how her design firm near Stanford University invented a replacement knee that rivals the performance of $25,000 replacement knees but costs only $80. Such amazing inventiveness, boldness of character and tenacity in face of roadblocks! We discussed the important lessons about creativity, perseverance and kindness which we learned from these two inventors.

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After debriefing the videos and reflecting upon what we learned, we began considering the inventive projects we wanted to pursue for our Venture program. Vaishnav Kuruvanka presented his idea for creating a healthy garden at HTW to grow fresh vegetables and herbs for use and sale to HTW families. We liked this idea very much and decided to use a garden spot on the HTW campus which is currently not maintained. (Rajendher Ji of HTW’s leadership team gave us approval to use that garden spot for our Venture project.)

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Annanya Chaturvedi then made a presentation about her idea to make arts and crafts from recyclable trash materials to sell to raise funds which we would then loan to villagers in India as a micro-finance project. We liked this idea very much and decided to connect the current recycling program at HTW to this new art and craft idea. We asked the Venture youth to come back this Sunday prepared to share what they have discovered about turning recyclable trash to arts and crafts and to show the others what they have learned.

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The Venture youth then began thinking of ways to connect our two Venture projects and thought about creating pots, raised beds and self-watering devices from recyclable trash for our fresh garden. And making leaf presses from the herbs we grow in our garden to combine with recyclable trash to make arts and crafts items to sell during Holi festival at HTW in March. What bright creative minds!

For the Venture meeting on Jan 26th, the youth Venturers will arrive ready to show interesting ideas they find about up-cycling trash into treasure from websites such as this one. Also, we will watch and then discuss two videos of remarkable inventors and their creative inventions. One will show us how he turned alarm clocks into medical diagnostic devices and another will show us how resourceful youth turned trash into music.

Venture Meeting – Sunday October 13th at HTW from 2 pm to 4 pm

On behalf of the mentors of the Venture Program at Hindu Temple of The Woodlands (HTW), I invite you to join us at our next Venture meeting this Sunday at HTW from 2 to 4 pm. Whether you have participated before or if this would be your first meeting, you are welcome. 

About Venture:

The Venture program welcomes 7th to 12th grade youth to join us at our regular meetings on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month from 2 to 4 pm at the Hindu Temple of The Woodlands. 

Come learn what the Venture program has to offer families and how it is different from volunteering and the vast majority of youth clubs. Come learn how youth develop Creative Character and Capability through participating in Venture projects, which serve the local community through innovative problem-solving. A dedicated team of Venture Mentors guide the youth at each Venture meeting to work together to identify needs in the local community and to address them through creative solutions. 

 

Venture welcomes youth in 7th to 12th grade; younger youth may observe Venture activities as long as they are supervised by their parents. Venture welcomes youth regardless of gender, ethnicity or religious affiliation. Please see our website to familiarize yourself with Venture at HTW.

 

This Sunday, we will begin our meeting with a brief presentation by a team of young innovators who will share with us their project and the lessons they learned about leadership and teamwork. 

 

Then, our Venture mentors will continue guiding the Venturers in their respective teams to design and construct an obstacle-course/playground for HTW using recyclable materials and planting trees as much as possible. This is our Venture Project for 2013-2014.

 

First Meeting of 2013-14 Season

Please join us on Sunday, Sept. 22nd from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm at Hindu Temple of The Woodlands for the 2013-2014 season’s first meeting of the Venture program.

 

Parents MUST attend this meeting to become familiar with Venture and to understand their important role.

Financial Responsibility and Innovation Day @ HTW

The Venture program was pleased to host Financial Responsibility and Innovation Day at HTW on Sunday August 25th.

Several youth and adult speakers shared with us their experiences, insights and advice on making responsible decisions regarding earning, investing, saving, and sharing. Venturers Vaishnav and Vishaal Kuruvanka started the afternoon with their presentations on the wisdom of investing in our own education, being frugal, and exploring creative ways to save. Vaishnav shared with the audience a comparison how much time it takes to earn $10,000 according to the earner’s level of education. Vishaal shared with the audience words of wisdom regarding creative frugality and the how the Mercedes Benz three pointed star described a way to think about financial budgeting.  

Comerica Bank representatives Ms. Sherry Batts and Ms. Jennifer Pierson shared with the audience the importance of budgeting, of distinguishing between “need” and “want”, and of understanding how banks serve the financial needs of customers.  

Next, Steven Price shared with the audience his experience investing in the stock market and discussed examples of how to evaluate different kinds of stocks, using Microsoft and Google as examples.

Christopher Price, Steven’s brother, showed the audience his entrepreneurial project of making and selling elastic, decorative wrist and neck bands.  He was interviewed by Venture Mentor Divya Kompella.

Divya continued to share her own experiences in investing in social benefit. She told the story of how she decided to forgo holiday presents and instead invest the money that would have been spent on gifts for her in sponsoring children in developing countries. She compared the feeling she felt in doing so as being “happy on the inside” compared feeling superficial happiness in receiving gifts.

Our final speaker, Ms. Jesal Patel, a financial adviser, helped the audience understand the difference between price and value, explained some important basics of economics, and shared words of wisdom regarding the cultivation of discipline, responsibility and goal-setting.

The large and diverse audience seemed engaged and interested in the variety of speakers and topics shared during the program.

Healthcare Innovation Day @ HTW

The Venture program was pleased to host Health Care Innovation day

at HTW on Sunday Jul 28th. The focus was on artificial blood and spine health.

Dr. Pachipala shared with us the latest medical innovations in Hematology including the artificial blood.

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Dr. Sunkavally shared useful information about the anatomy and functioning of our spines, how to care for it and how to minimize sports injuries to the spine.  Venturer Vishaal Kuruvanka and Venture Mentor Divya Kompella introduced our guest speakers. Venture Mentor Srini Katta arranged for our guest speakers to visit our program. Thank you to all of you who made this Healthcare Innovation Day possible!

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Toyota Dealership visits Venture Program

On June 22nd, 2013 Ms. Jackie Blanchard of the local Toyota dealership visited the Venture program at HTW to share with us and educational presentation regarding the technology used in the Prius hybrid automobile. In addition to the slide presentation, the dealership also brought an actual Prius to demonstrate its technology. We are delighted to offer this summer enrichment activity for the HTW community.

Videos of Ms. Blanchard’s presentation:

New Project Explored

On May 12th, the Venture youth and mentors explored possible projects to launch. After brainstorming over 25 ideas, the youth selected the following ideas for further consideration(not in any particular order):

• Recycling.
• Plant more trees.
• Use hand dryers.
• Create a fun, outdoor physical activity game that is devoid of electronic devices.
• Wii platform embedded in shoe.
• Provide better information about events at HTW

The mentors challenged the youth to combine two or more of these ideas into a possible project. In response, the youth suggested the following as a project:

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Create a fun outdoor physical game devoid of electronic devices which made use of recyclable materials to create an obstacle course/game with the planting of new trees as one of the “obstacles” to navigate.

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Mentors suggested that the youth contemplate this idea during the summer and view the video of Caine’s arcade to draw ideas and inspiration.

In addition, the idea of providing better information about events at HTW might be pursued as a parallel project by one or more of the Venture youth (Rushil seemed interested).

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Possible Resources for this Project

Upcycled Cafe

This article describes how university students constructed a cafe entirely from upcycled materials and inspired school children in the UK to turn trash into treasure. This project can inform and inspire our Venture team as we explore expanding the current recycling program at HTW.

Details about how to make use of recycled shopping bags.

Details about how to make cafe stools from cardboard.

Details about how to make cafe walls from cardboard.

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Make Many Things into a Stool

This designer shows a method for making stools out of a variety of discarded or recycled materials.

Mr. Peter Han Discusses Why Venture Program is Valuable

On April 28th during the presentation to parents, Peter Han, Venture program consultant, described his view of the future, the 21st Century Skills that our youth will need to thrive in that uncertain future, how the Venture program will cultivate such skills in youth and shared examples of youth-led innovation from around the world. Our youth in the Venture program at HTW can achieve no less if they focus their attention, work diligently and persevere. Peter’s presentation can be viewed below.

Venture at HTW April 28, 2013 Presentation for parents

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View this document on Scribd

Mrs. Latha Kuruvanka Discusses Creativity

On April 28th during the meeting for parents, Mrs. Latha Kuruvanka shared with all of us her interesting model of creative thinking and the need for our youth to study diligently and master the fundamentals in a variety of subjects.  Mrs. Kuruvanka was kind in sharing additional photos of her model for creativity, which are displayed below. We hope she would review her model with us more thoroughly at a future meeting. It is most interesting and relevant to our youth indeed!

In the model below, Mrs. Kuruvanka convey the thought that in order for a person to be able to design a wonderfully useful and desirable product or service (such as the iPhone), that person must master multiple subjects and skills. So we ought to focus on doing well in our studies at school AND learn 21st Century Skills such as we are doing in the Venture program at HTW.

April 28th Venture Team Meeting

On April 28th, the Venture Team met to discuss their progress and to welcome many new members. After providing everyone a brief summary of the history of the dish-washing project, which is part of Divya’s Renaissance 3 Recycling project, we asked Team members for updates.

Pavitra indicated that she discovered that one Indian restaurant downtown used banana leaves to serve the food for their customers and that the restaurant obtained the leaves from their own plantation of banana trees. Pavitra suggested that we explore how old the banana trees need to be before they can be harvested for leaves, how many leaves can be harvested at any one time without injuring the tree, how much time it would take for the tree to grow replacement leaves, and how many people can be served by a typical banana leaf. We applaud Pavitra for demonstrating this kind of analytical thinking which is necessary for us to determine the feasibility and viability of our ideas. Another Venture Team member mentioned that the HTW has a number of banana leaves on its campus. So perhaps we can explore the possibility of growing our own banana trees for harvesting their leaves to use as plates or plate liners for HTW meals.

Swathi shared with us her estimates for how much water, detergent and time would be required by her design for washing dishes at HTW. She borrowed 5 steel plates and glasses from HTW to use in exploring the parameters of her dish-washing design. She discovered that water costs would be insignificant since her design uses very little water and water is inexpensive (based on her examination of her family’s monthly water invoice). Swati discovered that her design, which uses one basin/sink, would require approximately 10 hours to wash 300 dishes. We applaud Swati for demonstrating analytical thinking in creating the estimates for time, water, detergent use by her design. With her estimates, we can compare alternative means or improvements to her design to achieve the lowest reasonable amount of time, water, detergent and money used and least amount of environment impact. We also applaud her for discovering the informatino through the actual washing of soiled steel plates. A critical facet of design-thinking is to observe and experiment in the real-world.

Vishaal and Vaishnav reported on their exploratory trip as described here.

We decided that we would continue working on the estimates of time, water, detergent, etc. needed for our respective designs and share them at our next meeting on May 12th at 1:00 pm. On June 16th, we will eat lunch on the steel plates and then experiment with multiple different original designs that the Venturers create for washing dishes. We will observe carefully and take detailed notes to learn more about the nature of washing dishes at HTW.

Thanks to Mrs. Latha Kuruvanka for taking these photos of our team meeting.

V and V at the Biryani Pot

Venturers Vaishnav and Vishaal Kuruvanka took the initiative to explore how restaurants wash the plates of their customers. Here are photos from their exploratory visit to Biryani Pot restaurant located on Westheimer in Houston.

Here is the dishwasher machine the restaurant uses. It can wash dozens of dishes in each batch. Vaishnav and Vishaal gathered information regarding the amount of water and detergents the restaurant uses, the typical number of dishes they wash per day and the sequence of steps the restaurant uses to wash dishes, glasses and pots.

The restaurant manager was very patient and kind in giving Vishaal and Vaishnav a tour of the kitchen area. Upon the conclusion of their tour, the manager offered to help our Venture team with your project to improve the dish-washing process for HTW.

We applaud the entrepreneurial spirit that Vishaal and Vaishnav demonstrated in exploring how dish-washing is performed in restaurants. The information and insights they gathered from their exploratory (and gustatory we hope) adventure will benefit our Venture team.

We thank Mrs. Latha Kuruvanka for driving Vaishnav and Vishaal to the Biryani Pot and taking these photos.

 

 

 

Important Meeting on Sunday, April 28th for Parents and their Youth

On Sunday, April 28th, 2013, the Venture program at HTW will offer a workshop for parents and the youth who are currently participating in Venture or who are interested in learning more about Venture. The schedule for this day is as follows:

Sunday, April 28th, 2013

1:30 – 2:00 p.m.  Workshop for Parents and their Youth 

We will share with you the goals for and principles behind the Venture program and explain why this program is unique and so beneficial for the youth. We will explain how participation in Venture will develop valuable 21st Century capabilities and character traits to help youth succeed in college and career beyond college.  You will have the opportunity to ask questions about Venture and we will answer them. Several parents of current Venture youth will share the reasons they support their children’s participation in Youth. Come join us.

2:00 – 4:00 p.m.  Venture Program Meeting for Youth 

We will continue making progress on improving the dish-washing process. We will analyze the details of the different ideas already discussed and plan for the Summer months and Fall seasons.

Sketches made by youth to improve the dish-washing process

The youth of Venture produced the following sketches of their ideas to improve the dish-washing process at HTW. They are learning to think visually and we are delighted by their results. Click the images below to see a slide show.

First Working Session of Venture at HTW – March 17th, 2013

Building on the excitement generated by the Creative Fun Day, the Venture group convened for our first working session on March 17th at the HTW.  Initially, two youth members proposed a project for making disposable serving bowls and plates out of pressed plant leaves as a means to reducing the use of disposable paper or styrofoam bowls and plates.  Pressed plant leaf bowls and plates could be composted and thereby create two benefits, potting soil and reduced use of landfill space. We explored the purchase or construction of manual-powered pressing machine for converting broad leaves into pressed plated and bowls. We determined that such machines could be purchased for $2,500 USD from India.

However, another opportunity was presented to the Venture group half-way into the working session. We were informed by Mrs. Jas Ghai and Divya Kompella that HTW had received a generous donation of 500 steel plates for use in serving meals at HTW thanks to the hard work of Divya Kompella, who founded the Renaissance3 recycling project at HTW.

However, the challenge was that the current process for cleaning the plates was too time consuming. From past experience, washing 500 soiled plates required four individuals over four hours to complete.  Past efforts to engage the community members to wash their own plates after meals proved ineffective. Few complied. Thus, the challenge for the Venture group is to develop a new system for cleaning as many as 500 soiled steel plates on the premise of HTW within a reasonable amount of time (i.e. within 60 minutes) after meals while minimizing use of water, detergent, money and energy.

After a period of initial brainstorming of solutions, the Venture group explored the kitchen area, the outdoor area just outside of the kitchen and learned about the current time-consuming dish-washing process. They were shown the tubs and tools currently used for washing dishes and taught the current steps for washing dishes. They also scanned the surrounding grass area near the kitchen which the were informed would be used to build permanent rest rooms.

Back in the meeting room, the Venture group formed their own teams and agreed to meet the challenge. Their assignment is to develop diagrams, schematics and sketches illustrating a possible solution to meet the challenge. They should illustrate the flow of people, the plates and the soiled food starting from the completion of the meal to the cleaning, drying and storing of the plates in preparation for the next meal. Their assignments are due at the next meeting of the Venture group on March 31, 2013.

The Venture youth agreeing to meeting the challenge are organized in the following teams:

• Aaryan, Pavitra, Pallavi
• Vaishnav, Rushil, Akhil, Nikhil
• Maya, Vishaal
• Swati

These youth are meeting this challenge as the new Venture program; they are contributing their ideas and hard-work to  the Renaissance3 project:

Divya Kompella is the founder/mentor for Renaissance3, to which she is inviting the youth from the new Venture program at HTW to contribute their ideas and hardwork.

The mentors for the Venture program are Jas Gai, Srini Katta, Latha Kuruvanka, Divya Kompella.  The lead contact is Sunil Gopalkrishna. Fabian Fernandez-Han and Peter Han are mentors and program consultants for the Venture program at HTW.

Questions and suggestions can be directed to Fabian or Peter using this contact form.