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By Paul Schlosser, CEL Graduate, MBA Candidate 2012
Over reading week, a team of MBAs from The Odette School of Business travelled to San Francisco, California to compete in the HULT Global Case Challenge regional finals. This is a competition run in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the Clinton Global Initiative at HULT International Business School that has student teams of five from universities around the world try to find solutions to social challenges such as energy, education, and housing in impoverished areas. There are regional finals in the 5 cities of London, Shanghai, Dubai, Boston and San Francisco with the winners of each city travelling to New York City to present their solution to Bill Clinton, among others. The winner of each stream receives $1 million to implement their initiative. Odette made it to the regional finals in San Francisco, competing against such schools as Yale, Stanford, Columbia and Michigan. CEL had three alumni on the team— Ben Iannetta, Emilie Cushman, and Paul Schlosser—who, along with team mates Brian Denneny and Ben Parent, competed in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, in the housing stream. Their solution to the global housing problem was a combination of centralizing financing operations, educating home owners on home ownership basics, as well as a "finance a family" loan program wherein families/individuals with disposable income make interest free loans to habitat families. The team made an impressive presentation on its idea to solve the global housing problem through Habitat for Humanity’s global network. The University of Windsor should be proud to take part in such a global competition that received over 4000 applications and competed among 300 schools worldwide. Hult will have to wait until next year to see what the students from the University of Windsor will come up with!
ODETTE’S HULT TEAM: Left to Right: Paul Schlosser, Emilie Cushman Brian Denneny Ben Parent Ben Iannetta