©2019 The William Davidson Institute 2 THE OPPORTUNITY Growing up, Jackie Spryshak said she didn’t have opportunities to meet people from outside the United States. Spryshak, a sophomore business major at the University of Michigan, is from a small town in Michigan. So when she heard about the chance to meet and collaborate with her peers from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, she immediately applied. She admitted to some apprehension before the program began about language barriers and differences in culture and mannerisms. But after the first meeting with her Egyptian teammates, “I realized how similar we all really are.” Nearly 5,000 miles away in Tunisia, Mohamed Chahbi had a similar desire to connect with fellow students from outside his country. Doing so, he said, gives students “a sense of accepting the other and an eagerness to listen to, embrace diversity, collaborate and benefit from the diverse experiences that entails living within different cultures.” Spryshak and Chahbi exemplify students who want to connect with each other cross-culturally, but often lack the resources or ability to travel. Thanks to today’s virtual technologies, students can now reach across the globe and connect in exciting, new ways. The challenge for the William Davidson Institute (WDI) was how to leverage virtual learning tools to help students build the 21st century skills needed to thrive in the modern workplace and solve real-world problems. University of Michigan student Jackie Spryshak teamed with a group of students from Egypt to form Team EcoMENA. THE OPPORTUNITY