Smith Undergrads Place Third in Case Competition on Social Responsibility

Congratulations to four undergraduates from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business who recently returned from University of Washington Tacoma boasting a third place finish in the Sixth Annual Milgard Invitational Case Competition on Social Responsibility. The team of students, all juniors, was selected shortly after winter break by the Smith Undergraduate Program Office and the Center for Social Value Creation (CSVC). They, along with 15 other university teams from around the country, were presented with the case challenge and had just 72 hours to come up with a plan and submit their final solution. The team departed for the UW Tacoma campus on March 2 and presented their solutions in person before panels of judges on March 3.

According to Kim Robertella Glinka, CSVC’s associate director, “CSVC aims to educate, engage and empower Smith Students to create a better world through business. The 2016 Milgard Invitational Case Competition offered a valuable learning opportunity to do just that. Our students were challenged to think beyond the bottom line and to explore the many dimensions of corporate citizenship via a real-world case.”

The student team also shared their perspective on the experience:

Yinyin Liao (Finance and Marketing):

This experience made me so proud to be a Smith School Terp. It was amazing to create a social value business strategy for a company like T-Mobile and be able to discuss and present our ideas to executive judges from companies like Microsoft, Amazon and T-Mobile. The opportunity to work on an impactful project that closely mimicked real-world social value consulting, with my closest friends from Phi Chi Theta, while visiting a beautiful city like Seattle, was an unforgettable experience.

Eric Higgins (Marketing):

Working on this case was an amazing experience, as a marketing and design student I love working with brand identities. The case sponsor we worked closely on was T-Mobile, a brand I admire for their youthful energy and bold brand strategy. As a team we knew we had to transcend this exciting brand into our final case pitch which made our whole preparation and time in Seattle so much fun!

Natalie Urban (Finance):

As soon as the case was released, our team quickly got to work and continued perfecting our presentation until we arrived in Seattle. Given a week's time to develop an effective solution, it was incredible to see what our team accomplished. We addressed key issues facing T-Mobile, mainly its initiative to increase digital access among the nation's youth. I found working with this issue to be extremely meaningful as technology is an integral part of our everyday lives. Brainstorming solutions for digital access issues is essential for our nation's progress, and working with a team to begin understanding and solving these issues was an invaluable experience.

Kathleen Curry (Finance and International Marketing):

As an aspiring social venture consultant, I was excited to work on CSR case for such a bold and brash brand like T-Mobile. I loved the strategy element of the case, as we had to rework T-Mobile's existing youth empowerment program to benefit the private, social, and public sectors.

First and second place went to Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management and University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, respectively.

On behalf of everyone at Smith, Glinka added, “They did a fantastic job bringing together their ideas to propose a strategy that achieved community impact and advanced business goals. We're quite proud of our Smith students!"

For more information about the Smith Undergraduate Program, visit: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/undergrad

- Claudia Donnelly, Smith Undergraduate Program