IMD Annual Report 2019

81

IMPACT STORY

IMD and UEFA unite for Innovation Challenge Two schools, two leading sports organizations, ninety MBAs, eighteen design students, one challenge: to come up with an innovative way for fans to experience the emotion of watching live football. In May, a mixed team of IMD MBA participants with a Master student in Product Design at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne won the inaugural 2019 UEFA Innovation Challenge for their idea to create a hi-tech bracelet to improve fan experience for future UEFA events. The winning project was Euroband – a wristband featuring radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, which fans can use to track their families’ locations and make purchases during football matches at stadiums and in tournament fan zones. Thewinningteamwascomprised of Anita Lee, Joseph Pineda, Peter Shibaev, Maki Shimizu, Tamil Varda Thamizharasan - all from IMD, and Benjamin Bichsel from ECAL.

“The whole atmosphere of the team was like a safety net. More than ever, I believe how a team works and how everyone cares really contributes to success,” said Tamil. For IMD’s MBA Innovation Module, the school, UEFA, ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and ThinkSport teamed up to create a unique and intensive week- long experience for MBA and Master in Design participants to learn about generating new ideas. The week featured a journey fromdiscovery, ideacreation, and business-model identification to then pitching ideas to a jury of UEFA experts and representatives from IMD, ECAL and ThinkSport. Participants connected with fans as well as a multitude of stakeholders, industry executives and experts spanning the worlds of academia, sports and innovation.

laboratory located in Renens, where students can rapidly prototype the most promising ideas, test them and receive feedback from a range of stakeholders and innovation specialists. The teams then worked on business models to flesh out the feasibility of their ideas, and learned how to pitch to mobilize support and attract investors. “During the week, we learned a lot of really useful design principles and working methodologies – such as parkour – which have the added benefit of guiding you away from coming up with something that is designed entirely with yourself in mind,” said IMDMBA Alex Berry.

The group spent two days at UniverCité, a fabrication