Alfi Dawson
Country: India
Degree: Master of Global Food and Agricultural Business
Faculty: Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics
Why did you choose to study your degree?
As I want to build my career as Logistics and SCM professional in the global food and agribusiness industry, this course will provide me with enough exposure to real-world scenarios and help me to build up skills for my career.
Why did you decide to undertake the Industry Research Internship?
Learning hands-on experience was my main reason to opt-in and apply for an industry research project where I can implement my theoretical knowledge into the real world.
- Alfi Dawson
How did you source the internship host?
This internship was put forward by my Course Director Mr. Craig Johns and Professor Dr. Adam Loch during my research part 1 course.
What was your research on and with who?
This research's primary objective was to understand managing transportation like pickups and delivery, which are the most significant challenges faced by Foodbank due to the rise in demand and an increase in hunger. As their current operation is based on manual or human routing, which sometimes does not include the cost associated with it, over time, Foodbank's demand has increased.
This project was in association with an AI firm Daitum, who provided their AI optimiser to Foodbank to make their transportation scheduling more efficient and cost-effective. This led to a change in the organisations operation from pen-based to computer-based. The formulation of Standard Operating Procedures also helped to create uniformity in foodbank operations.
What support did you get during the program from the company/supervisor/University?
I had continuous meetings and brainstorming sessions during the internship looking at the real-world business operations issues and how to solve them.
My supervisor had continuously helped me during the meetings and even in every dilemma faced during this internship, his continuous motivation and endeavour to teaching me soft skills had helped me the most.
My course professor (Dr. Adam Loch) had helped me to shape my work into words and in a more professional manner, with his continuous feedback, and the resources available at the online university library have helped me understand the secondary data for my research.
What was involved as part of the assessments?
This research was into 3 parts of assessments:
- Research Presentation- 15%
- Research Report- 70%
- Supervisor marks- 15%
How has the experience shaped you professionally?
This internship has helped me to learn soft skills understand logistics operations for a non-profit organisation, helped me in networking and enhanced my data analysis Policy writing skills.
What are your professional aspirations?
After the completion of my course, I would like to be part of a global food brand in the logistics and supply chain department working as a transportation scheduling and inventory coordinator.
Read more about Alfi's internship experience on our Global Food website.