Media Releases

Business & design students challenged at Rotman School design competition

March 7, 2011

TORONTO, ON – Stu­dents from insti­tu­tions across North Amer­i­ca who are rec­og­nized for their ground­break­ing work in design think­ing will be com­ing to Toron­to on March 25 and 26 to tack­le a “wicked prob­lem” in the sec­ond annu­al Rot­man Design Chal­lenge. The event will be held at the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and is host­ed by the Rot­man Busi­ness Design Club.  This year’s Chal­lenge is an inter­na­tion­al one, with a num­ber of US grad­u­ate and under­grad­u­ate pro­grams par­tic­i­pat­ing includ­ing the Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts, the Dar­d­en School of Busi­ness, the School of Visu­al Arts, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cincin­nati and the Weath­er­head School of Man­age­ment.

The case will be one based on a real-world prob­lem in the area of health and well­ness. The case is being devel­oped by the Rot­man Busi­ness Design Club, Doblin, a Chica­go-based inno­va­tion strat­e­gy firm and the Mayo Clin­ic Cen­ter for Inno­va­tion, who will incor­po­rate the solu­tions devel­oped in this case into their patient-cen­tric approach­es to deliv­er­ing improved health and well­ness out­comes. Judges will include rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Mayo Clin­ic and Doblin as well as Blue­print Busi­ness Archi­tec­ture, Bridge­point Health, Rot­man Design­Works, Idea Cou­ture, Saatchi & Saatchi, We Rep Ideas and oth­ers.

With a belief that the mind­sets and prac­tices behind great design can also be applied to the break­through growth of enter­pris­es and insti­tu­tions, the Rot­man School has been teach­ing stu­dents and orga­ni­za­tions about Busi­ness Design since 2006. In essence, Busi­ness Design blends design method­olo­gies and busi­ness acu­men to cre­ate a process that helps iden­ti­fy broad­er oppor­tu­ni­ties, cre­ate new ideas and accel­er­ate mar­ket suc­cess.

“The com­pe­ti­tion will help par­tic­i­pants under­stand how design think­ing broad­ens pos­si­bil­i­ties for inno­va­tion and devel­ops growth strate­gies that strength­en com­pet­i­tive advan­tage,” say com­pe­ti­tion co-chairs Alex Lee, MBA’11 and Sam Singh, MBA’11. “The teams from lead­ing busi­ness and design schools will be pro­vid­ed with much of the case infor­ma­tion before the com­pe­ti­tion starts but cru­cial pieces of infor­ma­tion will be released on the day of the com­pe­ti­tion to sim­u­late real time delib­er­a­tion, con­straints and deci­sion-mak­ing con­di­tions. We’re look­ing for­ward to the cre­ative solu­tions that the teams will come up with.”

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the com­pe­ti­tion, includ­ing reg­is­tra­tion infor­ma­tion for eli­gi­ble stu­dents and addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about the competition’s part­ners and spon­sors, is avail­able online at www.rotmandesignchallenge.com.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is redesign­ing busi­ness edu­ca­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry with a cur­ricu­lum based on Inte­gra­tive Think­ing. Locat­ed in the world’s most diverse city, the Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables the design of cre­ative busi­ness solu­tions.  The School is cur­rent­ly rais­ing $200 mil­lion to ensure Cana­da has the world-class busi­ness school it deserves. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
416–946-3818
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca

Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool