Durham College (DC) once again connected its students with the world through its Working Across Borders (WAB) course during the fall 2021 semester. Open to students studying in DC’s business programs, WAB allows learners to virtually engage and collaborate with other institutions globally, as teams collaborate to develop sustainable business solutions for real clients.

In its fifth year being offered at DC, 163 students from the college’s International Business Management and Project Management graduate certificate programs worked as part of multi-national teams with fellow participants from 14 other post-secondary institutions in countries such as Indonesia, Slovenia, Finland, Ghana and Belgium.

Following an opening ceremony in the early fall, each multinational group acted as consultants for Dutch fashion brand Garcia, where they were tasked with developing a sustainable value proposition, as well as a plan for how to effectively communicate with target audiences in one of the countries the company serves.

Because WAB encourages students to explore business opportunities to achieve the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals as part of their work, a special focus of the project was to enhance consumer perceptions of True Pricing, which reflects a product’s market price plus the social and environmental costs associated with that item.

Each team presented their final work via video pitch at the beginning of December 2021 and was assessed based on self-and-peer evaluation, as well as feedback provided by their team coach. Overall, the experience provided students with hands-on experiential learning, while developing their intercultural awareness and communication skills.

Congratulations to these DC students on their incredible success!