First ever surprise ending in Challenge's history
TORONTO, Dec. 11, 2015 /CNW/ - A hundred and nine innovative minds from
23 colleges and universities across Canada. Twenty-four innovative
ideas proposed in one day. But only one team can be named RBC's Next
Great Innovator - or maybe not?
During the 10th annual RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge, students were asked to solve
a real-life business scenario: "Build an innovative prototype for a
mobile, tablet, or online application that would be a differentiator
for RBC Wealth Management within the North American (CAD & US)
marketplace."
In late November, after a challenging 24 hours, not one but two teams
were named RBC's Next Great Innovators after developing unique and
innovative ideas that have the potential to improve the experience for
RBC clients in the future. Each team was awarded $10,000.
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Team RedBullOP from Sheridan College and McMaster University; and
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Team Brock Badgers from Brock University.
"We were really impressed by the quality of ideas brought forth by all
of the teams this year," said Jacqui Allard, senior vice-president and
head, Wealth Management Solutions & Client Experience, RBC. "Our two
winning teams truly captured the essence of the competition by applying
innovative technology solutions to enhance the client experience."
"As the Challenge continues to evolve each year, we are always impressed
with the calibre of students participating," said Gabriel Woo,
vice-president of Innovation, RBC. "Providing students with an
environment that allows them to solve complicated, real-world problems
in a creative way is a testament to RBC's commitment to innovation and
new ideas. Collaborating with some of Canada's brightest young minds
gives the students valuable work experience and provides us the
opportunity to explore creative and fresh ideas."
Challenge submissions were evaluated by the RBC Applied Innovation team
and narrowed down to the top proposals. A panel of RBC executives
including Jacqui Allard, senior vice-president, Wealth Management
Solutions & Client Experience, Jean-Francois Dion, vice-president,
Canadian Equities, Rick Hariman, vice-president, Global Wealth
Management Applications, Mike Rollason, vice-president & director,
Canadian Managed Accounts and Gabriel Woo, vice-president of
Innovation, then selected the two winning teams from a short list of
five finalist teams. The remaining three finalists in the competition
each took home $2,000. RBC's Campus Recruitment team partnered with
Applied Innovation to host this event.
Since its start in 2006, the RBC Next Great Innovator (NGI) Challenge
has received almost 700 post-secondary student team submissions and
almost 3,000 student participants. Prior to 2013, NGI was strictly an
essay competition. Since then, three of RBC's four events have been
Prototyping Challenges.
Over the years, numerous ideas put forward by NGI participants have been
tested and streamlined in the RBC Innovation Experience Lab and some
have been developed for use at RBC. One example is RBC Connect, RBC's Digital Social Collaboration tool, which was the eventual
implementation of an idea submitted to answer the 2009 challenge
"Suggest innovative methods or tactics to transform the workplace to
match the needs of an evolving and increasingly diverse workforce."
Prototype submissions this year will follow the same process.
For more information on the RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge, visit www.nextgreatinnovator.com or follow on Twitter (@rbcinnovator).
SOURCE RBC
