Media Releases

Thinking about the Future of Work at the Rotman School of Management

March 27, 2017

Toron­to, ON – More than 150 stu­dents with exper­tise in design think­ing from across the Unit­ed States, Europe and Cana­da will be com­pet­ing in the annu­al Rot­man Design Chal­lenge at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment on April 1 and 2.

This year’s chal­lenge is to sup­port TELUS, the lead spon­sor, in its Future of Work cul­ture evo­lu­tion. The chal­lenge is being tack­led by 28 teams of prob­lem solvers, thinkers and inno­va­tors in mas­ters-lev­el busi­ness and design pro­grams, who will present their ideas on how rela­tion­ships between employ­ers and employ­ees might change in the future.

Teams have been giv­en four weeks to prob­lem solve, test and iter­ate their ideas using the Rot­man School’s three gears of Busi­ness Design: Empa­thy & Need Find­ing, Pro­to­typ­ing and Exper­i­men­ta­tion and Busi­ness Strat­e­gy. Stu­dent teams will present their find­ings at the Rot­man School to a set of judges, and an audi­ence of indus­try experts and aca­d­e­mics. A win­ner will be announced at the end of the Chal­lenge on April 2 and will be award­ed the grand prize of CAD 9,000 (CAD 5000 for the 2nd place and CAD 3,000 for 3rd).

Teams will also have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work and par­tic­i­pate in work­shops led by TELUS as well as con­sult­ing firms, SYPart­ners and Doblin.

This year’s par­tic­i­pants come from some of the top  busi­ness and design schools in the world includ­ing: Cam­bridge Judge Busi­ness School, Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Booth School of Busi­ness, DeG­roote School of Busi­ness at McMas­ter Uni­ver­si­ty, Gus­tavson School of Busi­ness at Uni­ver­si­ty of Vic­to­ria, IIT Insti­tute of Design at the Illi­nois Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Kel­logg School of Man­age­ment at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, Savan­nah Col­lege of Art and Design, The Col­lege of William & Mary, Tuck School of Busi­ness at Dart­mouth Col­lege and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia Dar­d­en School of Busi­ness.

To find out more about the Rot­man Design Chal­lenge, please vis­it: www.rotmandesignchallenge.com and fol­low us Face­book. www.facebook.com/RotmanDesignChallenge

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness and soci­etal chal­lenges.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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Amy Fong
Coor­di­na­tor, Media Rela­tions and Events
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416–978-4193
E‑mail: amy.fong@rotman.utoronto.ca