Virtual entrepreneurship competition sparks student creativity

This June, the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship (SCCE) held a two-phase virtual competition for students to exercise their entrepreneurial creativity.

The first phase, known as the Stu Clark Name That Business Competition, required students to develop a unique business name for a new app that was designed to teach healthy eating habits to children by having them raise their own AI digital pet. After reviewing the hypothetical case, students were asked to provide and explain their rationale behind the chosen name.

The SCCE received numerous creative business names from different faculties at the University of Manitoba including the Faculty of Science, Asper School of Business (Undergraduate, MBA and PhD applications) and Faculty of Architecture to name a few. Over eight disciplines across the University of Manitoba applied.

The winner of the Name That Business Competition was Anthony Sze, a student at the Asper School of Business. Anthony won $500 for his creativity and fantastic explanation of why his name “Nutramigo” fit perfectly with the supplied business synopsis.

Anthony explained “I chose the name “Nutramigo” (a combination of “nutra-,” “- ami -,” and “- go”) because I believe it accurately represents the proposed business. The prefix “nutra-“connects with the business’ mission to help children foster a healthy relationship with food, and the root “ami” because “ami” is the French word for friend. By using the word “ami,” I hoped users would have the same sense of connection with their digital pet as they would with a real pet. The suffix “go” was also chosen because it represents the exploration aspect of the game.”

In phase two, known as the Stu Clark Design That Logo Competition, students were asked to design a logo based on the new name Anthony created.

The SCCE received unique logos from faculties including Faculty of Nursing, Arts, School of Arts, Asper School of Business (undergraduate and MBA) as well as the  Faculty of Science.

First and second place were awarded to two students from the Asper School of Business, Jonah Perron and Brandon Landgraff, who received $500 and $250 respectively for their designs. A $100 prize was awarded to third place winner Juanita Garcia, a student from the Faculty of Science.

Jonah explains his winning logo design as “fun, playful and bright to attract the 6-12 age demographic, while remaining clean and professional as to not drive away the parents.”

He also noted “as Nutramigo is a mobile application I kept the logo as a flat image to retain the clean feel, and add versatility. The main outline of the dog was to symbolize the AI pet that the children will be raising, while the inner design within the dog contains outlines of fruits and vegetables to symbolize the nutrition focus of the business. I chose to make the inner design is more subtle, because I knew parents would have higher attention to detail rather than the children, who would hopefully focus on the smiling puppy.”

The SCCE Selection Committee was impressed with the creativity of the students who participated in both virtual competitions and encourage students watch for other competitions in the fall on the SCCE, Facebook and Twitter accounts and on their website.

Asper Staff