Innovation Challenge, the largest "crowdcasting" event in the nation, comes to the Darden School this weekend with international student teams presenting solutions to major corporations' problems.
"Instead of turning to their in-house marketing teams ... some major corporations are going directly to the next generation of business leaders, students, and presenting them with real business problems and challenging them to give solutions," Darden spokesperson Steve Evans said. This business technique is known as "crowdcasting."
Unlike a traditional business plan competition, Innovation Challenge rewards innovation, said Philippe Sommer, director of the entrepreneurship program of Darden's Batten Institute.
Teams of graduate business students from across the globe competed to provide new solutions to major corporations' problems.
The crowdcasting trend has been popular with a number of companies, Evans said.
Five corporations -- DaimlerChrysler, General Electric, American Express OPEN, Whirlpool and Hilton Hotels -- submitted problems for teams composed of three to five graduate business students.
Hilton Hotels asked teams to suggest a way for them to attract a certain age group of women travelers to their hotels.
"We participate because of the amazingly creative and innovative ideas these students give us," said Andy Keown, assistant manager of corporate communications at Hilton Hotels. "Having students from around the world bring us their ideas is a great opportunity."
The two best teams in each category, or those who responded best to each of the companies' respective questions, come to Darden this weekend to compete with new questions from Hilton Hotels and DaimlerChrysler. The teams have been preparing their responses for the past three weeks. Four Darden teams placed in the top 10, but none placed in the top two spots required to continue in the competition.
Remaining teams, including the business schools of North Carolina, Berkeley and MIT as well as international schools such as McGill, the India School of Business and Manchester Business School, are still "competing to be the most innovative team in the world," Sommer said.
"It's easy to be innovative once, but we're asking these teams to do it consistently over three challenges," he said.
The winning team will be rewarded with a $20,000 prize.
Evans pointed out other benefits for the Darden community in light of the fact that several senior executives from various companies, such as Hilton Hotels, and other business innovators will be attending and judging the presentations.
"The competition gives Darden and schools we're hosting for this event access to and exposure to major corporations," Evans said.
Evans said Darden welcomed Innovation Challenge and hopes to make it an annual event on Grounds.
"We're happy to host the event because Darden places a great deal of emphasis on entrepreneurship," Evans said.
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