Hi!
I’m Aedan Hidasi, a Senior at Pitt’s College of Business Administration, and I’ll be working with the Business Team this semester! I’m pursuing a major in Accounting, a minor in Economics, and a Certificate in Leadership and Ethics. After graduating, I aim to establish myself in the tech industry on the West Coast, leveraging my accounting education to use my data transformation and analytical skills. In my free time, I love being outdoors and conducting music research. Beyond the classroom, though, I’m all about getting involved in efforts towards sustainability, ethics, and community service, especially when they relate to my field, which isn’t the most moral domain per se– so there’s work to be done!
In Summers prior, I traveled on behalf of the company Rustic Pathways to work on labor-intensive community service efforts spanning Costa Rica, Thailand, and Laos. These excursions involved constructing homes, basements, livestock encampments, and teaching English to aspiring learners, amounting to hundreds of hours of contributed service. During college, I’ve found myself at numerous conferences between Pitt and CMU for ethical use of AI and Machine Learning as it creeps into the ranks of our workforce, and for responsible data usage as data itself evolves into one of the hottest commodities in the global economy.
When I came across the opportunity to join the Appalachian Collegiate Research Initiative (ACRI), it presented itself as almost a personal capstone for my efforts from the past 3 years. A perfect cooperation of utilizing my accounting background for contribution towards being the business team/identity of the project, getting to actually use skills I’ve developed in the realm of research and data science, and another chance to engage with a community to assist them in their efforts to better develop their economy sustainably.
The Business Team’s primary objective this semester is to set forward the development of a brand identity for Uniontown’s downtown business district, which would greatly influence a more cohesive marketing strategy. The goal of such a project would be to elevate the image of the business district, promoting greater tourism to the area, sustaining increased volumes of economic activity, which drives job creation and community development, and helping secure funding from external communities by looking more “presentable.”
Ultimately, this individual project could span 3 years when a tangible brand identity begins to take form; therefore, the bulk of our work this semester will be conducting research and surveying to have the community inform us what this identity should comprise. We plan to work with the local school district, public officials, entrepreneurs, and even everyday patrons of the business district to garner different perspectives and ideas that can influence the brand’s composure. Varying interactions from students to business owners should provide critical insights into community members’ opinions on the district: What are people’s quarrels? What’s the greatest missed opportunity here? What’s keeping brain-drain as a lingering problem in Uniontown and even in the greater Fayette County area, and can our data collected inform a solution?
I think this is an incredible project that I feel fortunate to be a part of. There’s little opportunity within the confines of a University to use your education in a real-world scenario, where the stakeholders are genuine people who will live and breathe the consequences of your decisions, be it positive or negative. It’s an opportunity to see what my education has amounted to, and how I can apply my skills to the real world in a setting not so explicitly corporate and behind a screen. Working on this project will put my soft skills of effective communication and active listening to the test while conducting our aforementioned surveying efforts, as we’re required to place ourselves before the client to understand their wants and needs. I expect this project will also bring about elements of working in a setting of volatility, where plans are subject to change, stakeholders may disagree with your expected outlook of the brand identity, and things may just not go as planned, demanding resilience and flexibility.
While seemingly small, these traits are pretty important to possess and utilize in the workforce, and I foresee them being key to my career trajectory. Analytics and insights are meaningless if you cannot communicate your results to another party, and are especially meaningless if you assume the client’s wants and needs without thoroughly questioning and considering them. Flexibility is essential in the workplace as routines can’t be expected to be perfect. One cannot be easily overwhelmed when a wrench is thrown in their plan.