From tackling sustainability with Future17 to working on space exploration

They wanted us to go into the back end of their platform. It was still in development but they wanted us to go in and see if we can add our own learning experience into it.  

We all got our separate logins and had to create an experience which we could send off to students and get their feedback on it. We also had two main deliverables, a presentation and a report. 

I think the biggest one was having to manage the different time zones. Twelve hours’ difference is quite hard because you have to manage your own university commitments as well. 

We were mentored by University of Auckland lecturers and I think I took on quite a leadership role in that. I organised the meetings and made sure that everyone was on track.  

Coordination was a big one, because a lot of the time, people were a bit unsure in certain areas, and everyone was at different stages in terms of their understanding of the topic.  

I think this is because we all came from different backgrounds. Some of us were Geography students, others were business, like me, or psychology. So, it meant we had different understandings.  

Then presentation skills are crucial towards the end, and that's essentially what we were marked on; our ability to present our work to the client. 

We learned about how AI works and the methodology behind that which I'd never really experienced. I've used things like ChatGPT before and other language learning models, but I’d never experienced it from the other side. 

The work involved looking at the AI and the prompts it needed and then being able to critically analyse things to work out what it was going to produce.   

Having a diversity of skills within the team was great. For example, the geography student looked at how AI could be used to generate research questions. A psychology student was looking at different methods of retention in the brain when it comes to memorisation of key terms.  

Another insight was just that there's a lot of value that you can bring to an organisation just by being an outside perspective. I think organisations can sometimes lose sight of the big picture, so having new insights is of great value to them. 

The framework itself is hugely valuable to organisations because I think sometimes you lose sight of the big picture and understanding how interconnected all these goals are is very valuable.  

Addressing them in the work that I've done has always been about linking it back to the theory. There's a lot of literature out there on the SDGs and how each one plays its own important role but we need to apply it to what organisations are doing as well and give it a bit more grounding.  

I think gaining any work experience is always changing your view on the world in some ways and it always helps give you skills that might open your eyes to new industries and new areas of work.  

I've come to realise that anything is accessible via the internet. The fact we were working across all these different continents made me realise that you can be very far away but still provide value.  

In terms of industry, I got working with Spaceport through a connection that the university had with them. I'm open to all ideas but I think entrepreneurship ties in to most areas of sustainability in the sense that it's always about innovating where possible, being a little bit less risk averse, and trying to see what can be possible with the limited resources and time that you have and focusing on the small improvements that can lead to bigger goals being achieved. 

I worked as a sustainable space exploration intern for two months over the summer. They’re very involved in the local area and Spaceport Cornwall is a huge contributor to the economy.  

The sustainability element came from my passion to kind of make change where possible. Spaceport Cornwall faced its share of negative press in the early days due to the fact it’s based in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and the idea of sending things into space from Cornwall was very much opposed.  

Their main mission is to facilitate horizontal launch of satellites into space. But they also have their whole motto which is ‘Space for Good’, the fact that much of our climate data comes from space itself, and that without it, we wouldn't really be able to measure either the change that's happening or the change that needs to be made.   

The main premise was stakeholder engagement and how we can portray the sustainability strategy to internal and external stakeholders. We also looked at things like social impact reporting and how we can streamline it.  

Future17 was one of the big deliverables, getting them back onto that programme where they can have this kind of constant consultancy.  

I looked at a project on biodiversity net gain, which was all about land at the airport and spaceport that isn't being fully utilised, and also whether we could perhaps get them onto the green finance market. 

Understanding that sustainability is a hard problem to tackle, because, quite frankly, funding is one of the biggest barriers. We can try and implement low-cost solutions where possible, but unfortunately you need the funding to explore the idea, test it, prove it and implement it.  

Sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming, because you want to make this big change, but you understand that it can only be achieved with a lot of time and resource, and you just need to focus on small things you can do.  

For example, looking at the social value that your organisation brings different smaller areas of sustainability that can make a bigger impact over time. It can feel like you're working towards nothing because in the ideal world, we could do this and this and this, but unfortunately, that's big picture stuff that can't be done overnight. Patience is a key lesson.  

You’re going to enjoy it, particularly if you’re studying a subject where you don’t get much work experience within the degree itself.  

It’s a great experience and gives you something unique to put on your CV. Once on a project, I’d tell them to communicate well, manage the time and make sure that everyone pulls their weight.