Ryerson MBA

Team RUMBA (from left to right) Stephen Kershaw, Gavin Yeung, Maggie Yang and Kent Chin

Canada's Next Great Innovators can be found in the Ryerson MBA/MMSc program. A team of MBA candidates, Kent Chin, Maggie Yang, Gavin Yeung and MMSc candidate Stephen Kershaw, took first place at the 2008 RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge on Feb. 21, 2008, and won $20,000 as a result.

To enter the RBC challenge, teams of three to four university and college students from across Canada were asked to describe an innovation, idea or concept that Canadian financial institutions should consider in making it easier for clients to do business with them. In addition to the Ryerson MBA/MMSc contest submission, 11 other teams from Ryerson entered.

Ryerson's MBA/MMSc team called "Team RUMBA" came up with a idea to evolve the retail banking experience by using a personal banking workstation to combine the best of personal banking, ATM services and online banking in an "anytime, anywhere" fashion, which would allow for conducting sophisticated transactions and real-time interaction with live bank personnel.

"Sensitivity to customers' needs across the country was critical to their developing an exciting concept. Through a combination of some of the latest technologies, their proposal could make a range of banking services available in even the most remote areas," said Professor Dale Carl, Director of Graduate Students for the Ryerson MBA/MMSc programs.

According to Team RUMBA member, Kent Chin, the diversity of the team is what led to such an exceptional and winning concept. "It is only because individuals of our team possess a wide range of backgrounds and skill sets that we were able to conceive of such a creative, unique innovation."

Another winning attribute is how the team works together. "Teamwork is critical to success - you need input from all members to win, and our students combined talent of business perspective, market analysis and technology understanding to create a balanced and relevant proposal," said Ron Babin, Associate Director and Assistant Professor at the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management, who mentored the team.

Knowledge gained through Ryerson MBA classes also assisted the team. Says Chin, "The tools learned from my strategy courses were instrumental in ensuring logical thought processes, and in helping determine the merit of various ideas."

Three MBA teams from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and an undergraduate team from the Schulich School of Business at York University rounded out the top five. More than 100 proposals were submitted.