The Houston chapter of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals hosts an annual Student Competition and Mentor Day Luncheon where students enrolled in supply chain and/or logistics degree programs are encouraged to share their research and insights. The competition held on April 10 at the Downtown Club Houston Center allowed students to present original research and ideas to a group of approximately thirty professionals in the industry. Tran Vo, a senior in the University of Houston College of Technology Supply Chain and Logistics Technology program presented “Supply Chain Transparency through Blockchain.”
She discussed the current challenges facing the industry and explained how blockchain provides solutions. She then presented a highly illustrative example of how Wal-Mart implements blockchain for tracking sliced mangos, which reduces their incident response time from seven days to 2.2 seconds. She concluded with a discussion of other areas of the supply chain that might benefit from blockchain and some of the drawbacks presented by the technology. Vo was named second runner-up in the competition and received commendation from the panel of judges for her exceptional presentation.
Confessing that her participation took her out of her comfort zone, Vo said that it enhanced her presentation skills and was a gratifying experience in the end. “I’ve always had the fear of public speaking and normally I would just try to avoid it as much as possible. Sometimes all you need to do is to put yourself out of your comfort zone and deal with it. You may fail, but that is okay because what you can gain is much more than that. I am grateful for this experience to help me grow and become a better version of myself and realize that public speaking is not always scary,” she said.