ORANGE CITY – More than 80 high school students from across the region gathered on the campus of Northwestern Academy in Orange on Tuesday to help a real business solve a real problem.
Now in its fifth year, the INNOVATE competition is sponsored by Boyden farm equipment supplier Demco Products.
When the student contestants showed up on campus Tuesday morning, they had no idea what problems they would be asked to solve. They also don’t know who they’ll be working with to fix it.
“It’s kind of scary not knowing what you’re going to face,” said Carly Mohning, a member of the winning team.
A junior at MOC-Floyd Valley High School, she and her classmates in the Dutch Design class signed up for the competition, a new marketing class offered at Orange City High School.
“I really didn’t know what to expect,” said Rock Valley High sophomore Jocelyn Aranda.
As part of the winning team, Aranda signed up for the competition because she was taking an entrepreneurship class.
“It’s been a pleasure building relationships with everyone on the team and encouraging everyone to talk and be passionate,” Aranda said.
real world problems
At the beginning of the day’s activity, the students were divided into 12 groups of 6 people, and each group was composed of students from other participating high schools. Six high schools in the area are represented – Boyden-Hull High School in Hull, MOC-Floyd Valley High School, Rock Valley High School, Sioux Center High School, Spencer High School and Western Christian High School in Hull.
Contestants gathered in the DeWitt Learning Commons, located on the second floor of Northwestern University’s DeWitt Library, where Demco representatives asked them to take a fresh look at real problems facing their businesses.
“How can we better market our innovative coupler?” asked Darin Partello, Director of Corporate Culture at Demco.
Demco’s line of EZ Latch couplers is designed to simplify the process of connecting a tow vehicle hitch to a trailer, he said.
Aubrie Rabel, Sawyer Bolton, Luke Myers and Carly Mohning stand behind Jocelyn Aranda and Aryana Dokter, who received the Innovation Competition first place trophy. The event was held last month at Northwestern University.
“The advantage of our coupler system is that, basically, when you hitch a trailer to a truck, or whatever vehicle is going to tow that trailer, you take out the whole process,” Partello said.
According to Partello, most couplers require a manual locking step to secure, but Demco’s line features composite handles that allow the user to secure the ball to the hook in one step, reducing the chance of human or mechanical error.
Demco already advertised its EZ Latch line of products, but the students were tasked with raising the brand’s awareness among consumers and developing a marketing strategy that would suit different demographics. Students are also encouraged to consider strategies that may reach untapped markets, including young people not necessarily associated with agriculture or manufacturing.
“I’d never heard of a coupler before this,” said Luke Myers, a member of the winning team. “In the beginning I kept saying coopler.”
Myers, a senior at Boyden-Hull, nailed the pronunciation of the word in time for the group’s award-winning speech.
A dozen Demco employees, who were assigned to coach each team, were on hand to answer students’ questions and share their business expertise throughout the day. Two other employees attended the competition as judges.
“We have some coaches who float to different desks if needed, but it’s kind of cool because they’re there to answer students’ questions, and each coach has an area they can fall back on to help them out,” Partello said .
The Demco coaches included some employees from sales and human resources, two from the corporate quality team, and some design and manufacturing engineers.
Students have time during the day to work in groups, collaboratively developing innovative approaches to the business tasks before them. After a morning of brainstorming, each group was ready to pitch their solution to the assembled Demco representatives.
win-win
The main organizer of the competition, Erica Vonk, a professor at Northwestern University’s School of Business, said that INNOVATE provides a win-win situation for participating students and companies.
Business leaders have the opportunity to pick young brains that bring new ideas and imaginative solutions. Students have the opportunity to solve real problems, knowing that the solutions they propose may actually be implemented.
“That’s the added value of the year-to-year competition — it’s easy for me to ask businesses to participate because I can give them examples of what businesses have actually been able to implement in the past,” Vonk said.
Over the five years that the INNOVATE Competition has run, the Academy has partnered with various regional businesses.
Last year, Sioux Center-based Interstates sponsored the event in partnership with Northwestern’s business and economics department, and students were asked to help the company develop youth camps that expose young people to careers in fields such as programming, project management and engineering. In 2018, the sponsoring partner, Orange-based Staples Promotional Products, asked students to develop innovative service ideas that could attract new customer segments.
Vonk is director of Northwestern’s Center for Innovation and Leadership, which develops leadership programs that foster connections between the College and various community partners.
Northwestern Business School professor Erica Vonk addressed student contestants who visited campus last month for a business competition. Students represented six high schools in the area.
Funk worked with corporate sponsors for months before the competition, helping corporate representatives come up with issues they wanted high school students to help solve.
“They’re asking, ‘How can we use young minds to think differently? How can we come up with answers that are different than the ones our employees are producing?'” Vonk said.
In a presentation Tuesday afternoon, the students proposed new marketing strategies, including the use of influencers on social media to target young people who might use a coupler to tow recreational equipment such as jet skis or boats.
One set suggested couplers available in a variety of bright colors, which might appeal to younger customers in a world of iridescent Apple products.
The Demco employees present were all ears.
“Even today, I think five of them have come to me and said, ‘Hey, we never even thought about changing the color of the latch,'” Funk said Tuesday.
Learning opportunities
Funk said high school teachers in the district have seen the competition as an opportunity to develop important skills for students, including critical thinking, clear and effective communication, collaboration and creative problem-solving.
“It’s a real experience with a real company — you’re helping them solve a real problem or problem, or helping them rethink something,” Vonk said. “Students don’t always learn this in a traditional classroom.”
Winning team member Sawyer Bolton, a sophomore at MOC-Floyd Valley, said finding a team rhythm was key to his team’s success. According to Vonk, what stood out to the judges about the winning team was the video they produced, which included a side-by-side demonstration of a typical hooking process and a one-step process using EZ Latch.
“We’ve done a good job of specifying who’s doing what, so we can make the whole team better,” Bolton said.
The group divides responsibilities according to the various interests and talents of its members. Some team members had more discussions, and two people with design experience took the lead in creating the team’s PowerPoint presentation.
Panels were judged by two Demco representatives and an Academy representative, who evaluated presentations based on a variety of criteria, including group engagement, presentation design and delivery, and the merits of the team’s business-relevant ideas.
The soft skills students practice throughout the day will serve them well in whatever career they end up pursuing, Funk said.
“How do you step up and be part of a team for a day?” Funk said. “These are the skills that I think teachers are saying ‘yes’ to.”
Demco staff take student suggestions back to their teams for serious consideration, Partello said.
“They’ve come up with some great ideas, and everything will be seen for its potential,” Partello said. “Everything that came out of the presentation was good for us.”
