Commerce and engineering students shine at international competition in Montreal

(l-r) Clifford Isenor, Andrew Herold, Kaitlyn Anderson and Kevin Schwarzer

(l-r) Clifford Isenor, Andrew Herold, Kaitlyn Anderson and Kevin Schwarzer

During February break, Clifford Isenor and Andrew Herold represented Sobey on a cross-faculty elite team that travelled to Montreal to take part in the ENGCOMM Case Competition, billed as "the cross-disciplinary case competition combining both engineering and commerce." The competition was hosted by the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University and aims to collaboratively find solutions to real-world challenges faced by modern industries.

Representing the engineering side of the equation were Kaitlyn Anderson and Kevin Schwarzer, a student who had worked with the David Sobey Centre on their recent retail robot initiative. Team coaches were Sobey's Case Competition Coordinator Breagh Matheson, MBA, and professor Luke MacDonald of the Division of Engineering.

Fourteen schools competed including the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, University of Vermont, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, Western, York, Ryerson, McMaster, the Technological University in Dublin, Ireland, and the American University in Cairo.

Over four days, students completed and prepared case analyses on sponsor companies Global Medic, the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) and L3 Harris.

Overall: Saint Mary’s University was extremely competitive, with judges applauding their creativity and seamless flow of presentations. The team improved with every presentation, scoring higher with each consecutive day. After the 12-hour final case prep presentations, they were scored only three points behind the leader in their respective pool, making it a very close competition. The students refined their analysis and presentation skills and overall, had an incredible time.

During the opening dinner the team was seated with several executives of L3 Harris, providing our students with incredible networking opportunities.

The team would like to thank the following sponsors: Sobey School of Business, Dr. Malcolm Butler, Vice-President Academic and Research, the BComm Advising Centre, the Dean of Science Office/Science Advising, Engineers NS and SMUSA.