And the story continues….

We had gone through the voting process, the Principal and VP, Academics had advised us on the most pressing needs of the FGCE (if you don’t know what I’m referring to, check out the posted video of the Interview with the Principal…Great Stuff). We knew what the project was going to be about…WATER!

That was the easy part.  Now to start the engines and get this project off the ground.

But wait! No joke, we had to get this right.  Yes, we were filled with enthusiasm and excitement, but made a conscious decision to use all the tools we had acquired throughout our time as students, specialists and professionals, and set the motion straight. We had to spend time up-front to PLAN – The project scope, objectives, deliverables, risks, cost and our approach had to be vetted and bullet proof #NoPressure.

[Birth of the Technical Team]

O yeah, Technical Team!  Not Project Team, Not Project Committee…Technical Team or TT. We did so much research and work around technical specifications, we all could probably go into serious construction business after this.  We wear the “Technical” badge with pride and march on.

TT – A dynamic group of classmates (started off at 15 and increased to 20 strong), representing the greater class/set and tasked with project oversight and organization.  We had great representation with members who were Finance Executives, Entrepreneurs, Legal Powerhouses, Research Scientist, Project Managers, Information Technology Experts, Business Administration and Task Force Leaders.  Superb team dynamics in the house and a recipe for project success!

[Global Perspective]

We had representatives from Nigeria, USA, UK and Canada.  The project was challenging, but fun.  Thank goodness for technology; we spent thousands of minutes on Skype, three + hour conference calls, multiple times a week, super-hosting capabilities…for those who were not able to connect on skype, we conferenced them in (no man left behind strategy).  There was a sense of COLLABORATION, TEAM SPIRIT, CAMARADERIE, PROFESSIONALISM and I’m sure lots of coffee for those late night calls. I will not name names, but pretty sure someone was snoring on the phone (shhh….!).

[Research Results & Recommendations]

Wow…At this point I just re-lived all the calls and homework we had to do. Tell you what, let’s meet in the middle.  I have already created the snapshot of weeks of work, thousands of minutes on calls and summarized into six pictures.  Take a look and let me know what we came up with.

 

OK, OK, some people asked for small ‘mgbo’ (laziness is not good o).  Here goes:

  • We decided to go with Water Harvesting Solution due to prior unsuccessful attempts at digging bore hole and wells (remember it’s called Coal City for a reason…sits on a bedrock of coal and hard to penetrate shale deposits).
  • We decided to go with PVC tanks instead of metal – main reasons being health risk & maintenance.
  • Locations of focus for water harvesting were narrowed down to the Boys dorm and Girls dorm.
  • We vetted the possible contractors and went with a Hybrid approach. Dual contractors assigned.  Triplex Solutions for the more complex Boys Dorm; Wheels & Structures Ltd. (owned by one of our own – N. Iyiegbu) for the Girls’ dorm.

That’s it for now…Next Blog post will be about the Ka-ching factor!