Core Bowl showcases sophomores’ creative business solutions

Featured Events | Mar 10, 2014 | Claire Curry

By Farzana Ali (GSB ‘15)

With deans and students watching their every move, Jodie Chan (GSB ’16), Kaitlin Karcher (GSB ’16), David Lasco (GSB ’16), Daniel O’ Brien (GSB ’16) and Laura Wagner (GSB ’16) won the first-place prize of $1,000 after the Gabelli School’s Core Bowl on Wednesday, March 5.

In the spirit of business being a spectator sport, the Core Bowl showcases the top sophomores’ solutions to challenges real companies face.

The winning team tackled the shortcomings of this week’s headline-maker, the grocery chain Safeway. They confronted the challenge of food deserts, geographic areas isolated from healthy and affordable food. Thus, they proposed Truly Natural, a new sub-brand of groceries that provide fresh, organic food.

Team Safeway paired this solution with creative public relations efforts and educational seminars, all of which were presented with sophisticated style, and Truly Natural was projected to be 2.2 times as profitable as Safeway.

Competing teams put up a fierce fight with their trendy tiled Powerpoint slide deck, eye-catching display of Keurig machines, creative content and targeted presentations.

Usually cell phones are not a common sight in university competitions. However, this year, the audience pulled out their smart devices and voted for the best speaker of the day, David Lasco. At the awards ceremony, the administrators initiated another new tradition: GSB recognized team members who contributed to the project significantly or specially. Fellow teammates voted for these Most Valuable Team Players (see results below).

Dean Rapaccioli kicked off the presentations speaking of the GSB’s “spirit of innovation and growth.” New distinguished executive judges, new nomination categories and new talent go to show that the Core Bowl will continue its tradition of being an exciting and challenging tradition for years to come.

Congratulations to all the presenters and their professors for another successful Core Bowl.

Best Speaker:

• David Lasco

Most Valuable Team Players:

• Jackson Mills
• Lauren Villaraut
• Michelle Zanzano
• Alex Kuvshinoff
• Syed Ashekeen
• Sean Coari
• David Lasco

1st place: Safeway RTA

2nd place: UnderArmour RTV

3rd place: Safeway RTH