Students Win MBA Tech Innovation Competition

In April, Full-time MBA students Anne Laughlin (MBA’17) and Nicholas Lamp (MBA’17) won the top prize in the sixth annual MBA Technology Innovation Case Competition. The Georgetown McDonough School of Business students competed against teams from John Hopkins University, University of Notre Dame, and George Washington University for $6,250 in total prize money.

The event was hosted by Georgetown McDonough’s MBA Technology Club and the MBA Career Center in partnership with IBM. Alumni Peter Swiek (B’10) and Tom Coleman (B’01, EMBA’11) also assisted in the execution of the competition.

IBM wrote the case, which asked students to design a digital strategy for a U.S. Department of Defense client in terms of employee engagement, recruitment, and training.

“Teams had to address user research, strategic thinking, product design, security, infrastructure, change management, implementation planning, and budgeting — all while providing an innovative strategy that hypothetically could be brought to senior organizational leadership for approval,” said Swiek, a managing consultant at IBM. “The responses this year were by far the best in the history of the competition.”

The students presented their solutions to a panel of five consultants brought in by IBM.

“Georgetown has helped me improve my presentation and speaking skills,” said Laughlin. “I took Advanced Oral Presentations last year with Sarah Gershman, a wonderful professor. She certainly helped me improve my comfort speaking in front of large groups.”

McDonough students Anna Marie Jumamil (MBA’17), Heather Kelly (MBA’17), Stephen Kendrex (MBA’18), Zeynep Ozfatura Gundogdu (MBA’17), and Ari Sahu (MBA’18) also competed in the event and earned third place.