Media Releases

Rotman Business Design Challenge won by IIT

March 19, 2013

TORONTO, ON – For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year a team of stu­dents from the Illi­nois Insti­tute of Technology’s Insti­tute of Design have won the Rot­man Design Chal­lenge. Host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment on March 2 and 3, the Chal­lenge has emerged as the pre­mier inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion for busi­ness and design stu­dents look­ing to tack­le chal­leng­ing prob­lems in busi­ness inno­va­tion.

The Chal­lenge, orga­nized by Rot­man MBA stu­dents in the Rot­man Busi­ness Design Club, attract­ed stu­dents from busi­ness and design schools across Cana­da and the Unit­ed States as well as Fin­land.

Using cre­ative prob­lem-solv­ing tech­niques and frame­works from both the busi­ness and design dis­ci­plines, the teams had to devel­op a solu­tion to a ques­tion posed to them by Chal­lenge spon­sor, TARGET. The com­pa­ny asked the teams, “How can TARGET lever­age its Expect More. Pay Less® brand promise and it’s mantra of “Design for All” to become and be rec­og­nized as a lead­ing com­pa­ny in sus­tain­abil­i­ty?”

Rep­re­sent­ing the win­ning team from IIT were Wojtek Tusz, Thomas Gaskin, Katie Kowaloff and Stephanie Smith.

Com­ing in sec­ond was a team from MIT’s Sloan School of Man­age­ment with mem­bers Patri­cia Dod­son, Naio­mi Elia­son, Steve Frechette, Craig Hosang and Greg Fiore. Plac­ing third was a team of MBA stu­dents from the Rot­man School with mem­bers Amy Chong, Ter­ri Block, Dhru­pad Kaplish, Gurinder Khu­rana and Tom Low­den. A sec­ond Rot­man team also made the finals along with a team from OCAD Uni­ver­si­ty.

“As a com­pa­ny known for inno­va­tion and design, Tar­get is proud to have spon­sored the Rot­man Design Chal­lenge,” said John Morio­ka, senior vice-pres­i­dent, Mer­chan­dis­ing, Tar­get Cana­da. “It is inspir­ing to see busi­ness and design stu­dents from around the world apply their knowl­edge and cre­ative prob­lem solv­ing tech­niques in such a prac­ti­cal man­ner.”

In addi­tion to the com­pe­ti­tion, the Chal­lenge pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for par­tic­i­pants to hear a pre­sen­ta­tion on design and inno­va­tion by Roger Mar­tin, Dean of the Rot­man School.           

“We are thrilled to have been part of such a mean­ing­ful event for Rot­man School. The Chal­lenge con­tin­ues to gain recog­ni­tion and impor­tance for the par­tic­i­pat­ing schools and is now attract­ing great inter­est from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. This year the qual­i­ty of teams and pre­sen­ta­tions far exceed­ed our expec­ta­tions. We would like to thank all of our par­tic­i­pants, judges, vol­un­teers and spon­sors who made this event pos­si­ble. We’re delight­ed to pass the torch to next year’s plan­ning com­mit­tee and can’t wait to see what hap­pens,” say Chris­tine Wheat­ley (MBA’13) and Talia Vino­grad (MBA’13), man­ag­ing direc­tors of the Rot­man Design Chal­lenge.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Chal­lenge vis­it: www.rotmandesignchallenge.com

For more infor­ma­tion on the Rot­man Busi­ness Design Club vis­it: rotman.businessdesignclub.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, con­tact:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416–946-3818
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool