UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A team of Penn State Smeal College of Business students who are members of the Nittany Lion Consulting Group (NLCG) won the KPMG Ideation Challenge in late February.
Smeal’s team included:
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McKenna Schrenk, second-year supply chain and information systems major
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Isabella Fernandes, second-year finance major
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Colton Shiry, second-year finance major
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Hunter Badamo, second-year management information systems and accounting major
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Jack McCormack, second-year accounting and finance major
The students earned a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, this summer where they will participate in the KPMG Global Advantage Program, a developmental experience for select KPMG interns and invitees.
The competition was divided into three parts. For the first, teams had two weeks to develop an ideation for a round of competition at Penn State in November. Local competitions were held at various universities.
After placing first, the Smeal team moved into the virtual regional competition that featured 20 teams, four teams from five regions. It had two months between rounds to further develop its solution and was one of five teams, one from each region, selected to compete in a national competition.
The national competition consisted of three days at the KPMG Lakehouse in Orlando, Florida. At the Lakehouse, the team was afforded an opportunity to network with KPMG professionals and learn about KPMG’s artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives. More than 100 teams competed in the competition.
The prompt was to implement generative AI into an industry of the team’s choosing, with a focus on disrupting the status quo. The Smeal team developed an innovative solution to implement generative AI into agriculture to help reduce global food loss.
Smeal finished first, ahead of teams from Indiana University, the University of Southern California, the University of Florida and the University of Washington.
While many schools select a team of all-stars and help them prepare for this type of competition, that is counter to NLCG’s mission of helping every member to develop as a business leader. Under the leadership of Dave Lenze, assistant teaching professor of management and organization and the faculty director of NLCG, the group’s approach is to assemble its own teams and go compete. Students are expected to incorporate what they have learned in NLCG and apply their knowledge and skills to the case competition context.
This was the third time that Smeal participated in the Ideation Challenge. It has qualified for the finals all three years and was crowned the national champion in 2022.