Business

Podcast - EP31: Lisa Gring-Pemble on how sustainability is good business

Damian Cristodero — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 14:00:36 +0000

Podcast - EP31: Lisa Gring-Pemble on how sustainability is good business Damian Cristodero Wed, 10/13/2021 - 10:00

In This Story

Lisa Gring-Pemble thinks business can be a force for good in society. And the co-director of ��AV’s Business for a Better World Center and co-founder of the university’s Honey Bee initiative is an outspoken champion of that sensibility. Gring-Pemble tells Mason President Gregory Washington how and why business should be a force for addressing world challenges. She also describes how business can drive sustainability success and shouldn’t be measured simply by profits but how it affects the environment and the communities in which we live.

Topics

Access to Excellence podcast

Podcast Episode

podcast

Sustainability

Sustainability Research

Business for a Better World Center

Honey Bee Initiative

Costello College of Business

College of Science

Business

Mason’s new tech initiative is set to be an automatic game changer

Mariam Aburdeineh — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 18:57:24 +0000

Mason’s new tech initiative is set to be an automatic game changer Mariam Aburdeineh Mon, 09/13/2021 - 14:57

In This Story

David Rehr

David Rehr, Mason alumni, and other industry professionals discuss careers in the RPA industry as part of Mason's new RPA Initiative. Photo provided.

David Rehr said he has spent his entire life thinking about how government can be more efficient and effective.

The ��AV alumnus and director of Mason’s Center for Business Civic Engagement at the Schar School of Policy and Government spent 25 years as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Before that, he was a child growing up in the Midwest, the son of a hardworking postman who didn’t attend college.

His time in government, he said, made him a bit cynical, feeling that citizens’ hard-earned tax dollars, like his father’s, weren’t being used the most resourcefully.

Rehr said he learned about Robotic Process Automation (RPA)—what he believes could be the key to solving government and public sector inefficiencies—when he met someone from global software company UiPath in 2020.

That led to Rehr co-founding Mason’s RPA Initiative, in partnership with UiPath, in January.

“This gives Mason a really unique opportunity to help the public sector, and to make programs work better for citizens,” said Rehr, who earned a PhD in economics from Mason in 1998. “We’re the only university I could find that has such a program.”

“Mason has a history of innovation, technology, and studying public policy,” said Bobby Patrick, UiPath CMO. “We believe the partnership is a great fit and will benefit citizens seeking greater value in public-sector programs and initiatives.”

Rehr spoke over the phone about the initiative and its benefits.

What is RPA and how is it used?

RPA is an easy-to-use, commercial off-the-shelf technology that can automate repetitive, rules-based tasks.

During COVID, RPA greatly reduced the time it took to receive COVID test results. Another application analyzed photos of infected lungs…the robotics could determine within about a minute if you were going to have a complication.

There’s a digital assistant where if you have to fill out HR paperwork, you can scan your driver’s license and all your paperwork is filled out for you. For W-4 forms that multiple people have to sign, RPA can automatically send it to your supervisors, who are signaled by the technology that they have something to approve. It’s continuous from there.

Tell us about Mason’s RPA Initiative.

At the Schar School, we’re always focusing on how we can be innovative in our teaching and make an impact in the world.

The mission of the initiative is to research, educate, and communicate how the adoption of technologies can improve productivity, operations and service delivery for traditional and novel challenges of the public sector.

What can we look forward to with the initiative?

We’re hoping to be able to hire more students to work on projects, to further educate through webinars and instruction, do research, and communicate the benefits of RPA to the public sector.

The [School of Business] also has an RPA class. We’re hoping to take a multidisciplinary approach: how can we use all the Mason resources to make sure our students are aware of the opportunities and get hired when they graduate.

Will RPA replace human labor?

There’s not a substitution effect; there’s a complementary effect. This technology will help programs work better for people and more efficiently. It liberates workers from mundane things, which don’t appeal to their imagination. Using RPA will allow people the freedom to think about high value work priorities and unleash greater economic growth, greater prosperity, make everyone’s lives better, and help people have more fulfilling lives.

Where can people go to learn more about RPA?

The initiative produced a paper aimed at non-IT workers in June that’s been picked up around the world. We include examples of what’s happening globally with RPA, and explain the technology in a non-technical way. Those interested in getting involved can visit the RPA Initiative website.

Topics

Schar School

Schar School Faculty

robotic process automation (RPA)

Alumni

Business

Costello College of Business

Center for Business Civic Engagement

innovation

Campus News

Schar School News September 2021

Skincare Entrepreneur Hiwot Yohannes: ‘The Schar School Empowered Me on Many Levels’

Andrew J Schappert — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 13:01:51 +0000

Skincare Entrepreneur Hiwot Yohannes: ‘The Schar School Empowered Me on Many Levels’ Andrew J Schappert Wed, 08/18/2021 - 09:01

Alumna and skincare entrepreneur Hiwot Yohannes

Pharmacist and entrepreneur Hiwot Yohannes: ‘The Schar School has empowered me on many levels that I'm just forever grateful for.’

There’s an ancient adage in business: “Find a niche and fill it.” Schar School of Policy and Government alumna Hiwot Yohannes has done just that. And her niche is global.

“It’s really an accepted norm in the [skincare] industry that products that are marketed to skin of color are inferior in quality,” said Yohannes, an Ethiopian-born pharmacist who moved to the United States seven years ago. “I have traveled around the world, and I have walked into many beauty stores, department stores, and pharmacies, but I could not for the life of me find products that I was comfortable and excited to use.”

She turned her dismay into an opportunity. After four years of research, she started the New York-based Askalite Formula skincare company, dedicated, she said, “to developing effective and clean skincare products specifically for skin of color.”

In order to take her company and concept global, she needed know-how. To achieve that, Yohannes enrolled in the Master's in International Commerce and Policy (ICP) program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV, graduating in 2019. She also earned a certificate in Mason’s Global Health and Security program.

She credits Mason’s off-campus involvement with startup businesses with as the impetus to getting her company off the ground. In fact, “my first address was the Mason Community Business Partnership, which I wouldn't have known about if I wasn't a Mason student, or if I didn't have an extensive network of people,” she said. “As an immigrant, there's this information gap. So, the program just set me up to be up and running and begin pursuing my dream.”

While Askalite is based in New York, the products are manufactured in France where Yohannes found clinical testing for safety more rigorous than in the U.S.

“I have made sure that everything that goes into, literally, every piece of every ingredient that we use is clean—what we call squeaky clean. It's beyond the standard,” she said.

Yohannes credits her Schar School education for enabling her to manage such a process, including sourcing ingredients from around the world and ensuring stringent testing of products made on the other side of the Atlantic.

Coming to the Schar School from Ethiopia, where Yohannes says occupations are generally predetermined, she felt she could branch out from a traditional pharmacy career.

“When I came to the U.S., I had a clean slate. I could take my life wherever I wanted it,” she said. “And I didn't want that to be in retail pharmacy. So, I used the skill sets from the pharma space to solve the glaring problem I noticed. So that's why I felt that the Schar School’s International Commerce and Policy program was so unique and great for what I envisioned my future to be.”

She learned what she needed to know after all.

“It was life changing,” Yohannes said of the Mason experience. “The ICP was an eye-opener. The program has given me the tools that I need to navigate the country as well as the business platforms that are available.”

Now that Askalite has launched, Yohannes believes she’s well prepared for the next step in her success.

“I'm confident in being able to drive the business all the way [to the top], without a consultant or anybody because of the courses and the faculty,” Yohannes said. “The Schar School has empowered me on many levels that I'm just forever grateful for.”

Yohannes: ‘[T]he [ICP] program just set me up to be up and running and begin pursuing my dream.”