Wharton Provides A Platform To Budding Entrepreneurs Through Its Inaugural Ideathon
Wharton School’s Jay H. Baker Retailing Center, an interdisciplinary industry research center, held its inaugural edition of Ideathon, an inclusive & experiential hackathon-style event, on the 24th of January at the Sheraton Hotel on the Penn Campus. Presented by American fashion brand Ralph Lauren, the Ideathon saw the student-run teams work 24 hours straight for the event to strategize and prepare their pitch presentations.
The Jay H. Baker Retailing Center was established in 2002 after Jay Baker, Class of 1956, and his wife Patty Baker made a generous contribution to the Wharton School. The Center was later endowed permanently in 2010.
What is an Ideathon?
The concept behind the Ideathon is similar to that of a hackathon, where programmers work collaboratively on projects to finish them in 24 hours. Mina Fader, the Managing Director of the Baker Retailing Center, said the idea for Ideathon came to her six months ago. Recalling the reason behind the competition, she said:
“I wanted to give students an experience similar to a hackathon, an event where coders collaborate on software projects, but with a business focus. I am excited for students to learn more about current issues affecting the retailing industry.”
The Baker Retailing Centre has previously hosted a number of events, including the Coach Hackathon in 2017.
Wharton’s Inaugural Ideathon
Attended by nearly 200 University of Pennsylvania students, both undergraduate and graduate, the Ideathon saw participation from nearly 16 teams of 5 students each. The teams were given three minutes to pitch their solutions for three specific retail challenges – personalization, in-store experience, and mobile, where they had to prepare slide presentations and projected financials. The presentations were then presented to senior leadership from Ralph Lauren and Wharton professors, and the former picked the best pitch from each category, and the winning teams would receive $10,000 each.
Also present at the Ideathon 2020 was “Shark Tank” star Daymond John, aka “The People’s Shark”, who recalled his entrepreneurial stories, starting from selling t-shirts as a kid to now being the founder of the renowned $6 billion FUBU clothing brand.
Talking about how he started FUBU, Daymond said:
“I would go to work at Red Lobster for five years while I did FUBU at night and I would sleep four hours a night. The business called me back. If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, take affordable steps, fail fast, and fail small.”
The winning team of the Retail Experience and Technology challenge employed the idea of using QR codes on clothing tags which would take customers to Ralph Lauren’s social media. Rima Reddy, a first-year Wharton MBA student and part of the winning team said:
“I loved working with the team and was impressed by their creativity and unique ideas. All of the other teams that were presenting in our group had really good ideas so when we won it was definitely really shocking and exciting.”
The team that won the Personalization Challenge built a feature for Ralph Lauren’s website called Polo Family which allows customers to interact with friends and relatives, and provide feedback on virtual outfits, as well making wish lists for themselves.
H/T: Wharton
