Company Visit
Dion Gouws
Systems Innovation
& Change Making
Student: Thana Bos
Student ID: 20249
Field Expert: Franz Schwab
Pre Motorola – Dion Gouws
What kind of company will you visit?
Dion Gouws has been a professor at the Evergreen State College for over four years. It is ranked the most
innovative school in the West of the US and offers a program based on the same model as Team Academy
Amsterdam. Furthermore, Gouws is working on creating a community of team entrepreneurs around the
world through his involvement in Tanzania, Washington State, and South Africa. Lastly, he has an MBA and
has completed several studies in accounting and finance, which ties into his public accounting,
entrepreneurship, and business management consultancy practice. He started his company 17 years ago and
seems to be doing well, although his focus seems to have shifted towards education.
What are the learning goals for this interview?
During this company visit, I hope to learn more about the community of Team Academies Dion is promoting
and working on. Furthermore, I would like to know more about the education standards and systems around
the world and how these can be linked and interacted through. Dion has studied and worked at various
universities, so he seems like the perfect person to learn more about this area from. Lastly, I want to learn
from his experience of living in different countries and his life in general.
What is the customer role in this visit/project?
Dion's role is to interact with the students that will be participating, answer any questions that will be asked,
and share his stories and insights to the group.
What skills will you train during the visit?
During this visit, I hope to interact with Dion by asking critical and higher-order questions. By listening
carefully to the conversation, adding my own insights and views where possible, and asking questions that
add to the conversation at hand, I hope to get better at doing so and learn as much as possible.
How does this visit help you to reach your goals?
One of the goals I had when I came to Team Academy and still have is to create and interact with an
international community of entrepreneur's. This is mainly done through the learning journeys, but I believe
that actively engaging in an online community similarly to the one Dion is promoting is a great opportunity
to get feedback on projects, build international relationships, and collaborate.
Post Motorola – Dion Gouws
What went well?
This company visit aligned with a lot of my learning goals, and I am looking forward to interacting with
international team entrepreneurs on the Changemakersteam.com. Dion was very open in sharing his
perspective and offered new insights. Especially his view on the education system and the differences between
the US and Europe were interesting and expanded my understanding in this regard. Besides, I felt like I asked
some good questions that deepened the conversation. Instead of having multiple questions prepared, I think
that it is more useful to carefully listen to the conversation, add my own insights, and ask questions based on
this.
What went poorly?
Since we only had an hour to interact with Dion, I felt like the conversation was cut short. As a result, I was
not able to take from the conversation as much as I would have liked to. Furthermore, I could have added
more of my insights instead of seemingly agreeing with some of the more controversial statements made.
Even though I did agree to most which was said, I think that there were pieces missing.
What did you learn?
One of the most interesting things about the education offered at the Evergreen State College is that the
entrepreneurship program similar to Team Academy is going to be offered as a masters degree of business
innovation. As a result, all students entering the education will have a background with various hard skills,
which they are then able to put into practice. Therefore, it will mainly be about putting people in touch with
the abundance of resources and networks in the state and learning the principles of delivering value to
customers.
The open-source platform that is being built by students themselves to interact globally, allows for
collaboration on projects and global interaction. This platform is a small step towards a fully integrated global
network of Team Academies with transferrable degrees that are recognized all over the world. I believe that
this is something which is incredibly valuable, although I am not sure that Dion alone will be able to make
such a thing happen. I now recognize how fortunate EU students are to have the EC system which allows for
transferability of degrees.
Dion explained to us the US banking and education system, which made me realize how much of
changemaker Cryptocurrency could be for the US. It could revolutionize the economy, however, the US
banking system and government will not surrender their power that easily. Therefore, these new types of
money transfer will probably be regulated in the US, through which they will lose some of their inherent
power. Besides, one of the reasons that businesses are more easily scalable in the US than in the EU is because
of the consumer nature of their economy. In the EU, companies face a lot of trouble when expanding because
of the stricter regulations between and within countries.
What can you do better next time?
Focus even more on asking higher-order questions and adding in my own views on the matter.
How did this visit contribute to your goals?
I now have a venue to explore when it comes to interacting with a global network of team entrepreneurs.
Furthermore, Dion has opened my eyes to some macroeconomic and political differences between Africa,
the EU, and the US. As a result, I have a better, more complete understanding of the framework both
businesses and individuals operate in. This allows me to better interact with international students and to
scale the businesses I am involved in more effectively cross-country.