RSM 2016
ICUBE start-up coach Sam Dumcum with first-place winners (L-R): Queeny Nguy, Zineb Hamaimou, Susan Soojeong Park and Nour Shell
photo by Linnet Kocheril

Thinking outside the ICUBE

Sarah Jane Silva
sj.silva@utoronto.ca

Now in its fifth year, the annual Ready, Set, Market competition welcomed commerce and management students to take part in creating a marketing plan that would increase brand awareness for ICUBE, the Institute for Management & Innovation’s business accelerator at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

Hosted by the Undergraduate Commerce Society (UCS) and Student Management Association (SMA), this year’s daylong competition challenged students to find a way to market ICUBE’s unique services to a wider audience.

After five rounds of presentations followed by a lunch and networking session at the Blind Duck Pub, the top six teams emerged at the CCT building to pitch, in front of an esteemed panel of judges, a marketing plan that would increase brand awareness for UTM’s business accelerator.

First-place winners Queeny Nguy, Zineb Hamaimou, Susan Soojeong Park and Nour Shell, whose idea revolved around using U of T’s student portal, walked away with the $1000 prize and bragging rights.

“A few members in our team have never presented in front of more than five people, and now they were standing with a smile in front of over a hundred people,” said fourth-year student Zineb Hamaimou, who is majoring in Economics and specializing in International Affairs.

RSM judge and ICUBE start-up coach, Sam Dumcum, thought the winners had a great concept on helping entrepreneurship training and information be accessible to all students through Blackboard.

“While there were several excellent options presented, Own the Market’s concept is able to engage almost every student on campus,” added Dumcum.

“They also took into account ICUBE’s limited staffing resources and created a solution that stayed on budget including all aspects of the project.”

“Pitching a marketing strategy to ICUBE was an amazing experience, but the case goes beyond that: it’s about reaching out, catching interest and making them think, ‘I want to invest in that,’” said Hamaimou.

That’s done through connection building and storytelling.

RSM 2016 runners-up:

Second Place - Goal Diggers

  • Akanksha Garg
  • Andrea Koop
  • Anne Servidad
  • Sarah Sultana

Third Place - IMIC

  • Hibah Hashmi
  • Christina Pantone
  • Ahad Syed
  • Jun Takahashi