As a way to identify ambitious, creative and competent individuals (i.e., potential employees), once a year the financial software company Intuit assigns a real-world problem facing their small-business customers to our students. They are grouped in inter-disciplinary and inter-school teams of four and work together to devise innovative solutions for presentation to Intuit’s upper management. The presentations took place on CMC’s campus Friday, November 30th.
In this year's Idea Jam, there were 17 teams participating with representatives from all five Claremont undergraduate colleges. Several Senior Executives from Intuit were on campus as judges and cash prizes to the 1st ( $2000), 2nd ($1200) and 3rd ($800) place teams. Not only did Intuit offer these generous cash prizes, but the winners will have an opportunity to work with top product managers this spring to actually develop their solution.
2012 Idea Jam Results
1st Place: IT Unit (Pay with Mint)
Kristen Howard, Claremont McKenna
Kristin Lim, Claremont McKenna
Skyler Grossman, Claremont McKenna
Connor Barclay, Claremont McKenna
2nd Place: Near Field Communicators (Tipping)
Sasha Heinen, Pitzer College
Alex Melville, Harvey Mudd College
Leonard Schloer, Pitzer College
Rupert Deese, Harvey Mudd College
3rd Place: Team CheckIntuit
Grant Yang, Claremont McKenna
Spencer Orlan Davies, Claremont McKenna
Elan Bernstein, Claremont McKenna
Alice Chang, Claremont McKenna
Honorable Mention – Wi-Band
Desmond Henri Bonhomme-Isaiah, Claremont McKenna
Ralph Martin, Claremont McKenna