"Ethiopian Exports"

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After their flight landed in Addis Ababa, Ohio State business students stepped off the plane and onto a red carpet.

They were whisked past customs and assigned a press attaché before they were driven away in a three-car entourage, complete with bodyguards.

For six months, MBA students taking a Business Solution Teams course studied how to help Ethiopia improve profit from three of its top crops: flowers, sesame and coffee.

Recently, they spent a week in the African nation, working to apply what they'd learned halfway across the world.

When the students got to Ethiopia, they realized that officials treated them as professional consultants. Four times, the group was featured on the evening news channel ETV, akin to CNN. They met top Ethiopian officials including the ambassador, president, and prime minister.

"We figured out what we didn't know and then we chased people down that knew it," says Hersh Ashish Chaturvedi, one of the students in the group.

Students picked Ethiopia from a long list of possible project because it seemed like a place where they could really make a difference, said MBA student Drew Carmichael. "If we wanted to change the world," he said, "this was the best place to start."

“When do you get a chance to tell a deputy prime minister what to do?”
—Drew Carmichael

Chaturvedi and Carmichael describe Ethiopia as a land of great wealth and extreme poverty, with not much in between.

"It was absolutely a study of contrasts," says Carmichael. "There's a lot of people that want to see change."

But there was plenty to appreciate. Carmichael found Ethiopia to be a proud country marked by friendly people and religious and cultural tolerance.

Says Chaturvedi: "In Ethiopia you only have to know a person for 15 minutes before they ask to have you over for dinner. I turned down about 50 offers for dinner."

While there's no quick fix to improving Ethiopian export practices, Fisher students and faculty hope the trip opened the door to further collaboration between Ohio State and Ethiopia.

"I could never have hoped for a better experience," says Carmichael. "When do you get a chance to tell a deputy prime minister what to do?"

(Text: University Marketing Communications. Images: Fisher students)