Two teams from the Lundy Fetterman School of Business were recognized at the Elon Innovation Challenge competition (held in conjunction with the Sullivan Foundation). One Campbell team claimed first place, while the other received the “Most Inspiring” award.
The competition’s objective was identifying ways to help businesses and non-profits pivot to succeed during the pandemic. In the first stage of competition, teams submitted a three-minute concept proposal video to be evaluated. One month later, after working with a coach and partnering with a business or organization to implement their ideas with, they submitted a 4-minute final video. A total of 32 teams comprised of over 90 students participated, representing universities such as Stanford, University of North Carolina, North Carolina State, University of Delaware, Florida State and Elon, among others. Campbell’s winning team was awarded $5000.
Laura Care, Caleb Langdon, Cameron Heath, Brady Frampton and Jackson Allen were the first-place winners. They decided to tackle seating in movie theaters with COVID-19 regulations and used the theater in the new Oscar Harris Student Union as their partner organization. Their final submission video is online for viewing.
Siblings and fellow business students Chris and Kevin Mills developed and are actively launching a virtual mentoring program for Pitt County schools. Their video submission earned them the “Most Inspiring” award.
“Our students continue to amaze and thrive despite this unbelievable pandemic,” said Business School Dean Kevin O’Mara. “It would have been easy not to participate in these competitions given their virtual nature and additional difficulties surrounding everything else. However, not only did many students participate, but they did very, very well. We could not be more proud of how our student dealt with this unprecedented year.”
In the past year alone, business student teams have won awards at the Innovation Challenge, the Templeton Ethics Competition, the AMA Marketing Jam Pitch competition, the Stock Market Competition and the FinTech Competition. In addition, Campbell Accounting students volunteered to do tax returns for local citizens and student entrepreneurs continue to find ways to improve their communities and the world.