Wei-Kuang Huang


A ‘Smart’ Idea Wins UConn Students Praise, Award at Travelers Challenge

 
Travelers Competition
A team of UConn students that proposed a ‘smart-home’-style device for small businesses placed second in the 2014 Travelers IT Case Challenge on November 7 in Hartford.

“Our team was poised and prepared, earning second place and representing UConn well,” said Wei-Kuang Huang, the team mentor and a professor in the Operations and Information Management department.

The student team included: Khaly HuynhEddison BuenanoJeffrey Avery and Rubi DeLeon. All are seniors majoring in business data analytics, except DeLeon, who is majoring in business administration. They will divide a $700 award and each has the opportunity to participate in a job interview with Travelers.

First place and a $1,400 prize was awarded to the Carlson School of Management from the University of Minnesota. Other participating schools included: Bentley University, Central Connecticut State University, Quinnipiac University and University of Wisconsin.

“The competition at Travelers was both challenging and rewarding,” Avery said. “Professor Huang was a great mentor and the group really came together as a whole to achieve an awesome result.”

For their case competition, the students had to determine what new investment would benefit the company’s business insurance division. They chose a “smart home technology” paired with a mobile encryption technology and pitched it as a service for small businesses.

The UConn team’s recommendation to Travelers was to utilize it to create new business value, allowing a small business owner to lock doors, view video and audio, control appliances and other tasks from a smartphone. In turn, this would benefit the insurance company because it would lower an insured company’s security risk profile.

“We had only about two weeks from the time we received the case to the time we presented to Travelers, but even before the case, we met weekly to research current IT trends in the insurance industry,” Avery said. “This came in handy during our question-and-answer session, following our presentation, because we were quite well-versed in issues surrounding IT. Secondly, it turns out that Travelers is currently implementing smart-home technology with some of its clients, so our case turned out to be highly relevant.”

Avery said the team had tremendous support from peers at UConn as well as alumni, who took the time to view practice presentations and provide valuable advice and insight. All four students were enrolled in Huang’s OPIM 3103 class, where they had already been given a case study relevant to the insurance industry. It turned out to be valuable practice when the Travelers’ case competition arose, Avery said.

The competition was open to IT students with high GPAs. The students spent more than 40 hours researching, meeting and rehearsing, Huang said. The teams presented their findings to a panel of Travelers senior management. They also had a chance to network with the executives during the competition, which was held at the Travelers’ headquarters in Hartford.

Pictured L to R: Wei-Kuang Huang, Rubi DeLeon, Khaly Huynh, Jeffrey Avery, and Eddison Buenano.


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Employees Recognized for Years of Service

Dean John Elliott and Associate Deans Sulin BaLarry Gramling, and George Plesko recognized employees for their years of service to the University and the State of Connecticut on Friday, May 2, 2014. The Employee Recognition Reception was held in the School of Business Board Room.

The employees recognized were: Continue Reading


UConn Team Wins Travelers IT case competition

The University of Connecticut School of Business team won the 2011 Travelers IT case competition. The competition is held annually by the Travelers IT Leadership Development Program that pairs talented college students with realistic business scenarios. It is a great opportunity for students to showcase their technical and business abilities, and helps demonstrate the importance of strong research, teamwork, and presentation skills.

This year’s team included Dr. Wei-Kuang Huang, Associate Professor in Residence, Operations and Information Management Department, as the faculty advisor and the following students:

  • Chad Munroe (Senior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Dean Richards (Senior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Joshua Rome (Senior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Reuben Ruppert (Junior in Business Technology, Hartford)
  • Justin Iriondo* (Senior in Management Information Systems, Storrs)

The participating schools for this year’s competition included University of Minnesota (Carlson School of Management), Central Connecticut State University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,  Quinnipiac University, Metropolitan State University and UConn. This year’s topic of the competition dealt with Agile software development and project management. During the three weeks prior to the competition, the team put forward tremendous amounts of effort and time discuss issues, researching solutions, and rehearsing their presentation.

On Friday, November 18, 2011, the team presented their final work along with other participating schools in front a panel of 7 judges. Our students, being poised and prepared, came out on top, representing UConn with great pride. This is the third time UConn won the Travelers IT case competition in the past four years.

*Justin participated in the first two weeks but was unable to continue due to medical constraints.


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