Students in a business class at Porterville College in California recently joined a video call with students from Iraq for an instructor-facilitated discussion on the United Nations’ sustainability goals. Afterward, the groups dispersed to seek input about the nature of local sustainability challenges from members of their respective communities. In the weeks that followed, over Zoom, Slack and WhatsApp, the students connected for synchronous and asynchronous chats to discuss their findings. Then they selected one problem—a strained Iraqi power grid due to an influx of refugees fleeing the Syrian war—to help mitigate.
