A team of GW Law students won first prize in a new campus-wide competition to find sustainable solutions to public policy issues.
Hosted by the GW Law Government Procurement Law Program and Sustainable GW, with guiding support from the GW Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Environmentally Sustainable Procurement Policymaking Project was launched in February during GW's Changemaker Week to teach students about the challenges of implementing environmentally sustainable remedies to real-world problems. It culminated with the final round of competition on April 3.
The winning team, “Team World Central Kitchen,” proposed a solution to the nonprofit’s challenge of cutting through burdensome procurement policies to work with the federal government to provide meals to disaster relief victims. The team was composed of Natalie Cristo, Class of ‘21; Teshale Smith, Class of ‘20, Joshuah Turner, LLM Class of ’22; and Jane Wang, Class of ’22, and coached by Flavia Rosen, a World Bank lawyer who creates impact investing to support sustainable development projects in the face of climate change.
The three-judge panel of Michelle Moore, CEO of Groundswell and Federal Chief Sustainability Officer in the Obama administration; Dr. Michael Wooten, Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy; and Alan B. Morrison, Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest and Public Service Law at GW Law, deemed Team World Central Kitchen’s solution “most ready to pilot” among the four competition submissions. The judges were especially impressed with the disciplined structure of their proposal and the extent to which they tested their proposed solution through interviews with key stakeholders.
Karen Da Ponte Thornton, LLM ’01, Director of the Government Procurement Law Program, developed the project to help students across GW’s academic programs augment their problem-solving and cross-collaborative skills. The students also had the opportunity to work with leading policymakers, practitioners, and experts in the field including Dr. David Gallop, Director of the Defense Acquisition University Leadership Center.
The participants expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to engage in the first-ever competition.
“This has been my favorite and most valuable experience in law school thus far,” said Ms. Cristo. “I hope that our policy proposals help nonprofits and NGOs in the future.”
The students were particularly grateful that the competition finals moved forward despite the COVID-19 pandemic and related social distancing recommendations. In lieu of an in-person event, the competitors presented their final proposals via Zoom, where they were also questioned by the judges about their testing processes and the viability of their solutions.
“The competition was an amazing (and very different) experience to have during law school,” said Ms. Wang. “My team and I were inspired by the enthusiasm and passion for this bud of an idea that was brought to fruition.”
In the fall 2020 semester, adjunct professor Mathew Blum, JD ’88, Associate Administrator in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, will pick up where the competition left off with a new Acquisition Policymaking course that teaches students to apply innovative problem-solving and plain language to solve real-life policy challenges.