Master’s in Management Students Partner With Toyota Mobility Foundation for Experiential Learning Opportunity

Using technology to help people is a theme behind an experiential learning component that master’s in management students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business will focus on during the spring 2025 semester.

The client partner is Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) and their mission is “enabling more people to go more places.”

“[TMF] is about helping people. People have to be first,” William Chernicoff, PhD, EMBA ’21, Senior Manager of Global Research with Toyota Mobility Foundation told students during a class presentation on Feb. 4, 2025. “And we can use technology to support that, but it always has to be grounded in what people need and what works for them as unique individuals.”

Chernicoff shared with students background about the organization as well as the business challenge students will be working on with his guidance as well as Nicole M. Coomber, assistant dean of experiential learning and clinical professor of management and organization and co-instructor Ab Krall ’81, Smith executive in residence.

During the project, students will be divided into two areas of focus relating to TMF’s Mobility Unlimited Hub (MUH).  Area one is about business expansion where teams will concentrate on regional expansion of the Mobility Unlimited Hub concept to new geographic markets. The second area is thematic innovation, where teams will focus on ways the concept of the Mobility Unlimited Hub concept can be leveraged by Toyota Mobility Foundation to explore new thematic or focus areas.  The MUH launched its inaugural cohort in Toronto in 2024 with seven Canadian startups. The goal of the MUH is to, according to the TMF website, is to “revolutionize personal mobility and bring innovative solutions to market.”

“This project allows students to apply in real-time the problem-solving process they are learning in the Foundations of Consulting class,” says Coomber. “Instead of using static case studies, we use the actual client’s challenge to apply each of the four stages of our problem-solving process.”

In order to make their recommendations, the students will need to conduct in-depth assessments such as identifying key stakeholders and partners for collaboration.  To do this, students will use a four-step process: defining the problem, identifying a focus area using the McKinsey’s MECE (Mutually Exclusive Comprehensively Exhaustive) theoretical framework, conducting analysis and telling the story through slides and presentations. The process allows students to leverage theories and frameworks they have learned through their coursework. 

Students will present their findings to Toyota Mobility Foundation in March. For more information about experiential learning opportunities and how you or your company can get involved to work with Smith students, reach out to the Office of Experiential Learning.