A team of five international relations graduate
students from Johns Hopkins' School of
Advanced International Studies finished in first place
out of more than 100 teams competing in the
Sustainable Innovation Summit Challenge hosted by
Thunderbird School of Global Management in
Glendale, Ariz.
SAIS was the only non-MBA school participant in the
group of 10 teams from around the world
competing in the final round of a competition held Nov. 8
to 10 in conjunction with Thunderbird's
Sustainable Innovation Summit. MBA teams from Thunderbird
won second and third prize.
Tania Askins, Chris Meyer, Michael Ralles, Sarah
Rotman and Genevieve Taft made up the first-
place SAIS team, taking home a $20,000 prize. Another team
of SAIS students — Alan Cameron, Sean
Michaels, John Moyer, Sarah Naimark, Matthew Walsh and Kim
Wattrick — was also one of the eight
finalists.
In all, more than 100 teams representing 51
universities in 13 countries took part in the
competition.
Students in the final round were challenged to develop
innovative and sustainable business
concept plans addressing real-life challenges faced by two
global corporations, Johnson & Johnson and
Arizona Public Service.
Arizona Public Service asked the teams to formulate
opportunities for the utility company to
use business process improvement and make sustainability a
core business value.
The SAIS students developed an E2Co meter, a matrix
that would allow the APS Sustainability
Group to score a proposed project considering three
different criteria: environment, economics and
community (hence, "E2Co meter"). If an idea scores high
enough on the meter, it could be worth a
certain amount for a cash award — say $100 — to
the employee who brought the idea to the
Sustainability Group, thus providing incentives to all
levels of employees to think about their work and
potential projects in a sustainable way.
Johnson & Johnson's challenge was to find an effective
means for addressing the medical needs
of diabetic patients in China.
The SAIS team's proposal was based on leveraging the
concept of "social capital" to provide
greater access to diabetes monitoring services. As a
starting point, the students focused on the
retired people who meet daily in China's public parks to do
group exercises. The students proposed
identifying one person among them to become a Johnson &
Johnson "friend" trained in basic diabetic
monitoring and equipped with a J&J tester and data
collector. Benefits to Johnson & Johnson would
include the selling of more testing strips, accessing a new
sales channel and markets, and obtaining
new data on diabetics. At the same time, the diabetics
would receive better monitoring and
information about their condition, with the goal of
reducing complications from the disease.
Chris Meyer, captain of the winning team, described
the summit as challenging and said that his
group's strategy was different from others. "For the APS
proposal, our plan was viewed as
straightforward, engaging all levels of the workforce and
easily implemented. In the second question,
we focused our Johnson & Johnson proposal on the grassroots
level and how to deliver benefits
directly to the underserved population in China."
The winners were announced at an awards dinner capping
the three-day competition, which
reflected a commitment to economically, environmentally and
socially sound business practices.
Greg Unruh, director of Thunderbird's Lincoln Center
for Ethics in Global Management, said,
"This year's Thunderbird Sustainable Innovation Summit
produced truly innovative thinking by the
finalist teams. They were able to demonstrate the real
business value produced by new approaches to
businesses that integrate economics, ecology and societal
concerns."
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