Theses and Dissertations

Consider Steven Cryos’ words, “When disaster strikes, the time to prepare has passed.” Witnessing domestic water insecurity in events such as Hurricane Katrina, the instability in Flint, Michigan, and most recently the winter storms affecting millions across Texas, we decided to take action. The period between a water supply’s disruption and restoration is filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and distress -- particularly since there is no clear indication of when, exactly, restoration comes. It is for this reason that Water Works now exists. As a team of students from diverse backgrounds, what started as an honors project with the Founders Lab at Arizona State University became the seed that will continue to mature into an economically sustainable business model supporting the optimistic visions and tenants of humanitarianism. By having conversations with community members, conducting market research, competing for funding and fostering progress amid the COVID-19 pandemic, our team’s problem-solving traverses the disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to educate our readers about a unique solution to emerging issues of water insecurity that are nested across and within systems who could benefit from the introduction of a personal water reclamation system, showcase our team’s entrepreneurial journey, and propose future directions that will this once pedagogical exercise to continue fulfilling its mission: To heal, to hydrate and to help bring safe water to everyone.

The market for searching for food online is exploding. According to one expert at Google, “there are over 1 billion restaurant searches on Google every month” (Kelso, 2020). To capture this market and ride the general digital trend of internet personalization (as evidenced by Google search results, ads, YouTube and social media algorithms, etc), we created Munch to be an algorithm meant to help people find food they’ll love. <br/><br/>Munch offers the ability to search for food by restaurant or even as specific as a menu item (ex: search for the best Pad Thai). The best part? It is customized to your preferences based on a quiz you take when you open the app and from that point continuously learns from your behavior.<br/><br/>This thesis documents the journey of the team who founded Munch, what progress we made and the reasoning behind our decisions, where this idea fits in a competitive marketplace, how much it could be worth, branding, and our recommendations for a successful app in the future.

Waste pickers are the victims of harsh economic and social factors that have hurt many<br/>developing countries and billions of people around the world. Due to the rise of industrialization<br/>since the 19th century, waste and disposable resources have been discarded around the world to<br/>provide more resources, products, and services to wealthy countries. This has put developing<br/>countries in a precarious position where people have had very few economic opportunities<br/>besides taking on the role of waste pickers, who not only face physical health consequences due<br/>to the work they do but also face exclusion from society due to the negative views of waste<br/>pickers. Many people view waste pickers as scavengers and people who survive off of doing<br/>dirty work, which creates tensions between waste pickers and others in society. This even leads<br/>to many countries outlawing waste picking and has led to the brutal treatment of waste pickers<br/>throughout the world and has even led to thousands of waste pickers being killed by anti-waste<br/>picker groups and law enforcement organizations in many countries.<br/>Waste pickers are often at the bottom of supply chains as they take resources that have<br/>been used and discarded, and provide them to recyclers, waste management organizations, and<br/>others who are able to turn these resources into usable materials again. Waste pickers do not have<br/>many opportunities to rise above the situation they are in as waste picking has become the only<br/>option for many people who need to provide for themselves and their families. They are not<br/>compensated very well for the work they do, which also contributes to the situation where waste<br/>pickers are forced into a position of severe health risks, backlash from society and governments,<br/>not being able to seek better opportunities due to a lack of earning potential, and not being<br/>connected with end-users. Now is the time to create new business models that solve these large<br/>problems in our global society and create a sustainable way to ensure that waste pickers are<br/>treated properly around the world.

Human beings have long sought to conquer the unconquerable and to push the boundaries of human endurance. There are few such endeavors more challenging than venturing into the coldest and harshest environments on the planet. The challenges these adventurers face are nearly countless, but one that is often underestimated is the massive risk of dehydration in high mountains and the lack of sufficient technology to meet this important need. Astronauts and mountaineers of NASA's Johnson Space Center have created a technology that solves this problem: a freeze-resistant hydration system that helps stop water from freezing at sub-zero temperatures by using cutting-edge technology and materials science to insulate and heat enough water to prevent dehydration over the course of the day, so that adventurers no longer need to worry about their equipment stopping them. This patented technology is the basis of the founding of Aeropak, an advanced outdoor hydration brand developed by three ASU students (Kendall Robinson, Derek Stein, and Thomas Goers) in collaboration with W.P. Carey’s Founder’s Lab. The primary goal was to develop traction among winter sport enthusiasts to create a robust customer base and evaluate the potential for partnership with hydration solution companies as well as direct sales through online and brick-and-mortar retail avenues. To this end, the Aeropak team performed market research to determine the usefulness and need for the product through a survey sent out to a number of outdoor sporting clubs on Arizona State University’s campus. After determining an interest in a potential product, the team developed a marketing strategy and business model which was executed through Instagram as well as a standalone website, with the goal of garnering interest and traction for a future product. Future goals of the project will be to bring a product to market and expand Aeropak’s reach into a variety of winter sport subcommunities, as well as evaluate the potential for further expansion into large-scale retailers and collaboration with established companies.

The Founders lab is a year-long program that gives its students an opportunity to participate in a unique team-based, experiential Barrett honors thesis project to design and apply marketing and sales strategies, as well as business and financial models to start up and launch a new business. This honors thesis project focuses on increasing the rate of vaccination outcomes in a country where people are increasingly busy (less time) and unwilling to get a needle through a new business venture that provides a service that brings vaccinations straight to businesses, making them available for their employees. Through our work with the Founders Lab, our team was able to create this pitch deck.

Consider Steven Cryos’ words, “When disaster strikes, the time to prepare has passed.” Witnessing domestic water insecurity in events such as Hurricane Katrina, the instability in Flint, Michigan, and most recently the winter storms affecting millions across Texas, we decided to take action. The period between a water supply’s disruption and restoration is filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and distress -- particularly since there is no clear indication of when, exactly, restoration comes. It is for this reason that Water Works now exists. As a team of students from diverse backgrounds, what started as an honors project with the Founders Lab at Arizona State University became the seed that will continue to mature into an economically sustainable business model supporting the optimistic visions and tenants of humanitarianism. By having conversations with community members, conducting market research, competing for funding and fostering progress amid the COVID-19 pandemic, our team’s problem-solving traverses the disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to educate our readers about a unique solution to emerging issues of water insecurity that are nested across and within systems who could benefit from the introduction of a personal water reclamation system, showcase our team’s entrepreneurial journey, and propose future directions that will this once pedagogical exercise to continue fulfilling its mission: To heal, to hydrate, and to help bring safe water to everyone.

Though about 75 percent of American waste is recyclable, only 30 percent of it is actually recycled and less than ten percent of plastics disposed of in the United States in 2015 were recycled. A statistic like this demonstrates the immense need to increase recycling rates in order to move towards cultivating a circular economy and benefiting the environment. With Arizona State University’s (ASU) extensive population of on-campus students and faculty, our team was determined to create a solution that would increase recycling rates. After conducting initial market research, our team incentives or education. We conducted market research through student surveys to determine the level of knowledge of our target audience and barriers to entry for local recycling and composting resources. Further, we gained insight into the medium of recycling and sustainability programs they would be interested in participating in. Overall, the results of our surveys demonstrated that a majority of students were interested in participating in these programs, if they were not already involved, and most students on-campus already had access to these resources. Despite having access to these sustainable practices, we identified a knowledge gap between students and their information on how to properly execute sustainable practices such as composting and recycling. In order to address this audience, our team created Circulearning, an educational program that aims to bridge the gap of knowledge and address immediate concerns regarding circular economy topics. By engaging audiences through our quick, accessible educational modules and teaching them about circular practices, we aim to inspire everyone to implement these practices into their own lives. Though our team began the initiative with a focus on implementing these practices solely to ASU campus, we decided to expand our target audience to implement educational programs at all levels after discovering the interest and need for this resource in our community. Our team is extremely excited that our Circulearning educational modules have been shared with a broad audience including students at Mesa Skyline High School, ASU students, and additional connections outside of ASU. With Circulearning, we will educate and inspire people of all ages to live more sustainably and better the environment in which we live.

This thesis project has been conducted in accordance with The Founder’s Lab initiative which is sponsored by the W. P. Carey School of Business. This program groups three students together and tasks them with creating a business idea, conducting the necessary research to bring the concept to life, and exploring different aspects of business, with the end goal of gaining traction. The product we were given to work through this process with was Hot Head, an engineering capstone project concept. The Hot Head product is a sustainable and innovative solution to the water waste issue we find is very prominent in the United States. In order to bring the Hot Head idea to life, we were tasked with doing research on topics ranging from the Hot Head life cycle to finding plausible personas who may have an interest in the Hot Head product. This paper outlines the journey to gaining traction via a marketing campaign and exposure of our brand on several platforms, with a specific interest in website traffic. Our research scope comes from mainly primary sources like gathering opinions of potential buyers by sending out surveys and hosting focus groups. The paper concludes with some possible future steps that could be taken if this project were to be continued.