Victory was coming. You sensed it as Starline team members Lucy Ruh, Enzo Lodico, Cathy Nguyen and Candace Stephenson finished their presentation for a case competition put on by their INFO I101 Introduction to Informatics course in collaboration with Deloitte at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering’s Dorsey Hall.
These students excelled beyond their years in selling their cutting-edge business idea for Deloitte, an audit, consulting, tax and advisory firm; they also sold themselves and their newly acquired technology skills in a real-world competitive setting summed up by the business model relating to their proposed AI-powered product that would record and transcribe meeting discussions.
“Your memory. Elevated.”
“We were asked to come up with an innovative idea, and we came up with one,” said Ruh, a finance and accounting major. “The idea had to be aligned with Deloitte’s values and mission and priorities. It was nice to utilize our coursework into a real-life presentation to get real practice for the business world.”
Honed by insight provided in the INFO I101 class, Starline beat out three other teams that presented cases to Deloitte on why the company should invest in their technologies. The competition aimed to spark creativity in presenting a case for a prestigious consulting firm interested in technological innovation.
Multicor-X took second with students Mason Fondo, Rishi Bhuthpur and Varesh Polu. They proposed a low-energy AI multiprocessing construction for data process optimization.
Other final round teams were Team 2 with Sky Angeles, Victoria Johnson, Nick Michaels and Carmelo Russo; and Team 5 with Khushi Aggarwal, Ryker Dowd and Guineer Kaur Lamba.
During the competition, which spanned the final two weeks of the semester, students developed relationships with Deloitte representatives, and got a chance to improve their public speaking skills.
Judges were Deloitte’s Bobby Stephens and Megan Morgan; as well as Patrick Phillips, IU associate vice president for client technology support. Morgan, a senior consultant, is a Luddy Informatics graduate. Stephens, a partner and principal at Deloitte, is an IU graduate. Phillips is also an IU Informatics graduate.
“This is our second you of running this case competition,” said Logan Paul, a member of the Informatics teaching faculty, “and we were excited to see how our students extended their final projects into this case with Deloitte.”
Chase McCoy, a member of the Informatics teaching faculty, said the competition provided an opportunity for students to use what they’ve learned in the classroom in a real-world setting.
“So often when we do things in the class, it stays in the class,” he said. “You don’t get to see how what you built or created can have an outside impact.”
McCoy said he was impressed with the students’ work throughout the semester, that they were among the best students he’s had in his time at IU, and that he hoped they would continue to excel. He added that he and the Luddy staff were there to help with students’ personal and professional success as well as academic.
Starline aimed to empower Deloitte clients by using Artificial Intelligence to bridge the gap between memory and technology. The presentation included a cost analysis and graphics that showed how Starline aligned with Deloitte’s mission and values of enhanced client collaboration, advanced technical innovation and sustainability through digital tools.
Ruh said AI’s increasing worldwide importance sparked their idea. They wanted a product that could help Deloitte internally. The result was a Starline wearable, much like a watch, that could record and transcribe what was said in meetings.
“It would enable users to detect and categorize notes without physically taking notes,” she said. “That would allow them to pay better attention in meetings. It’s a passive device that can increase internal efficiency.”
Ruh said the Starline team learned invaluable technical skills during the semester and used them to come up with a “futuristic idea to solve Deloitte’s problems or any tech company’s problems.”
“To achieve this,” she said, “with all the hard work that went into it and especially while finals were going on, was super satisfying.”
The competition required students, most of whom were first-semester freshmen, to publicly present their ideas and back them up with facts and research.
“This was a great opportunity for students to work in teams and participate in a case competition, meet with Deloitte team members, present to them, and get feedback,” McCoy said. “It exposed students early on in their academic careers to what professional opportunities might be available. It got them thinking early on about what they can do professionally.”
Beyond that, “I think they had fun,” McCoy said.
More than 140 teams began the competition through class labs. Luddy Informatics Ph.D. student Ashlee Grady said all of the teams were impressive.
“Cutting it down to 15 and then to the top four was incredibly challenging,” Grady said. “Our judges were impressed by the caliber of our students and the work they delivered.”
Deloitte’s Megan Morgan said Starline separated itself from the three other finalists because of its presentation, flow and overall idea.
“It was how they backed up their idea with the market research,” she said. “From the layout of their project and how they related it to us, to how they got from Point A to Point B, was fantastic.”
Morgan added that all four final teams “were polished.”
“We forget that they’re mostly freshmen,” she said. “(Luddy) freshmen keep getting more and more impressive. As a Luddy graduate, it was fantastic to see.”
Grady was equally impressed with Starline’s presentation.
“The judges looked at each team’s structure to see if they had all the things we were looking for. Starline knocked it out of the park. They had all of those things, and more. They anticipated what the judges asked for. They had it in their appendix.”
Beyond that, Grady said, Starline did small things that went a long way in impressing the judges, including having printed handouts.
“Some might feel that was outdated,” she said, “but it was a nice touch in the digital world we’re in today.”
Added McCoy: “They did a phenomenal job stating their reasons, and a very good job in selling the product.”
In the aftermath, how did Starline team members plan to celebrate?
“A big nap!” Nguyen said with a smile.