Temple Winners, Wharton Blockchain, and More – Philly News
Summer may be just beginning, but that doesn’t mean class is out for Philadelphia business school news. Here’s this week’s Philly news brief.
Fox School Announces Second Annual IMPACT Award Winners — Fox Newsroom
The Temple University Fox School of Business recognized outstanding staff members at the second-annual IMPACT Awards ceremony late last month, honoring staff who demonstrated the ability to collaborate effectively as groups to deliver impactful service, teaching, and research contributions. The awards are also held with Temple’s School of Sport, Tourism, and Hospitality Management.
This year, 16 groups representing the accomplishments of 70 faculty and 86 staff members earned nominations. The three winners were:
- The Fox Global Immersion program
- The Temple University Entrepreneurship Academy (TUEA)
- The Fox Center for Undergraduate Advising.
Winning groups took home glass trophies, customized merchandise to commemorate the achievement, a special group experience, and financial rewards.
To read more about the winners, click here.
Penn Launches Strategic Collaboration with Ripple — Wharton News
The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science recently announced the launch of The Ripple Project: a collaboration with blockchain-based global payments leader Ripple that aims to support academic research, technical development, and innovation in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and distributed ledger technology.
Geoffrey Garrett, Dean of the Wharton School, proclaimed during the announcement that:
“Blockchain represents the fusion of technology and finance spanning schools and disciplines well beyond Wharton. The Ripple Project will transform the way our students and faculty look at blockchain and its potential to change the world. We are thrilled to welcome Ripple’s collaboration as we prepare future leaders who will shape the future of how this dynamic technology is developed to transform fields as diverse as finance, logistics, and healthcare.”
Penn is one of only 17 universities around the world partnering with Ripple and its University Blockchain Research Initiative. Each university has the autonomy to determine its own research topics and areas of focus.
You can read more about this exciting news here.
EMBA vs MBA: Which Is Right for Me? — LeBow News
The LeBow College of Business recently published an article to help prospective MBAs choose between their EMBA and MBA programs. The piece compares and contrasts the Experience Level, Class Style, and Curriculum of both programs.
MetroMBA has ranked LeBow’s EMBA as one of the best in the Philadelphia metro area. Check out how the two degree programs match up here.
MIT Breaks Down Starbucks Response to Recent PR Nightmare, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
What Starbucks Got Wrong—and Right—After Philadelphia Arrests – MIT Sloan Newsroom
Following Starbucks’ PR nightmare this past April in which an employee at a Philadelphia Starbucks had two African American patrons arrested after while they waited to conduct a business meeting, Starbucks announced it will host an afternoon of racial bias training for 175,000 employees across 8,000 of its locations.
MIT Sloan senior lecturer Roberta Pittore commended the coffee giant on the sincere response it made following the initial clumsy attempt to address the controversy in a generalized statement.
Regardless of the potential impacts a single afternoon of racial bias training might have on its employees, Pittore believes that “something is better than nothing, more is better than less, and sooner is better than later. I think what it does achieve from Starbucks’ point of view is that it changes the discussion from ‘What did our employee do that was offensive,’ to ‘How can we learn and how can we change?’”
You can read professor Pittore’s entire take on the incident and the Starbucks response here.
Two Northeastern Students Created an App to Revolutionize the School Bus Industry – D’Amore-McKim Blog
The Best Buy-sponsored E-Fest recently awarded $40,000 to BusRight, an app current D’Amore-McKim School of Business students Keith Corso, ’21, and Evan Eddleston, ’22, co-founded to “revolutionize the school bus industry.”
BusRight is designed to “track school bus passengers, current location, calculate optimal travel routes, curb carbon emissions, reduce transportation costs for bus companies, and improve quality of life for passengers, parents, and bus drivers.” According to the article, many school administrators and bus company officials have expressed interest in using the app.
Eddleston writes, “Bus drivers are home earlier, students are home earlier, and parents know where their kids are. It’s a much more efficient system than the one in place today.”
You can read more about BusRight here.
“Be Unreasonable” – Sawyer Business Blog
The keynote speaker at the Sawyer Business School 2018 commencement was Boston Foundation president and CEO Paul S. Grogan who received an honorary doctorate and shared some refreshing words of wisdom drawn from a lifetime of devotion to the betterment of communities.
“Powerful interests conspire to keep things the way they are. They’re fiercely resistant to change because they benefit from the status quo. [There is a] need for courageous public servants who can stand up to pressure and citizen activists who can reshape public opinion in their communities.”
Boston Foundation president and CEO Paul S. Grogan, speaking at this month’s Sawyer Business School commencement / Photo via suffolk.edu
Grogan advised graduates to think beyond the material success their prestigious degree will help them attain. “I implore you to volunteer, to vote, to donate to charity … but moreover to be an active citizen and fight for your fellow neighbors who don’t enjoy the full promise of an American life.”
You can read more highlights from Grogan’s lecture here and watch his speech in its entirety below.
June MBA Deadlines You Need to Know
Don’t be left behind, and get a jump on the MBA application process this June! Here’s your guide to this month’s MBA admissions deadlines in our top metros. Continue reading…
Healthcare Tech Teams Dominate 2018 Wharton Startup Challenge
Just a few weeks ago, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School held the 2018 Wharton Startup Challenge, which awarded cash prizes to outstanding student entrepreneurs whose startups all have the potential to become “the next big thing.”
Billed as the school’s most significant entrepreneurship event of the year, the Wharton Startup Challenge saw 27 semifinalist teams compete for $135,000 in cash prizes.
Eight teams made it to the finals on April 27, where their ideas were assessed by six top-level executives from companies including Joor, Karlin Asset Management, the Charian Group, Monetate, Examworks, and Orasure.
The judges were asked to evaluate each team based on varied criteria, which included the quality of the idea, product, or service; how prepared the team was for launch; and their execution plan.
Wharton Startup Challenge Winners
Sanguis
Sanguis, an at-home blood cell counting device for chemotherapy patients, took home the $35,000 grand prize, along with $15,000 in legal, accounting, and strategy services.
Dubbed “a medical device dream team,” Sanguis’ Daniel Zhang, Prateer Agarwal, and Diyanish Agarwal are close friends who met as first-year medical school students. Their device measures neutrophil levels, which are the human body’s primary method of fighting infection. Patients can use Sanguis to track their neutrophil levels themselves and contact their doctors immediately with any potential problems.
On the decision to focus on this issue, the Sanguis team points to harsh statistics that 400,000 cancer patients will suffer from low neutrophil levels during their chemotherapy treatment each year. They are especially passionate about the device’s potential to reach underserved regions, citing the team’s Indian heritage as a personal connection. “It’s especially important to us…Sanguis could be a huge game-changer.”
MD Ally
Second prize and the competition $10,000 “Innovation Award” were both awarded to MD Ally, an emergency tele-medicine company designed to allow 911 dispatchers to instantly access ER physicians for non-emergency calls.
MD Ally “moves up the clock” of emergency care and ultimately “drives savings for patients, payers, and municipalities” by reducing non-emergency use of ER physicians and resources. Randy Findley and Shanel Fields, both of whom work in healthcare technology, developed the idea. The duo is acutely aware of the industry’s technological limitations “that prevent first-responders from delivering the best and most timely care.”
Strella Biotechnology
Strella Biotechnology took home three different awards—the Social Impact Prize ($10,000), the Michelson People’s Choice Award ($3,000), and the Crowd Favorite Award. Strella left an impression with its presentation of a biosensing platform that predicts the ripeness of fruit and reduces “food spoilage and waste in the supply chain.”
The product allows for ripeness monitoring while food is in storage so businesses can “always locate the readiest product for their customers.” Strella’s team pointed to statistics that demonstrate how almost a third of all food in the world is wasted or spoiled before it can be eaten. Strella hopes its services can work directly to fight global hunger.
Avisi Technologies
Finally, the third prize of $10,000 was awarded to Avisi Technologies, whose VisiPlate is “a nanoscale defense against blindness from glaucoma.”
The VisiPlate is a “nanoscale drainage implant” used to fight glaucoma and mitigate a wide spectrum of treatment issues, including “post-operative double vision, excessive scar tissue, patient discomfort, tissue erosion, and bleb failure.”
Prior to the competition, the Avisi team made a point to highlight the many resources Wharton makes available to its student entrepreneurs. Team leader Rui Jing, a finance and strategic management specialist who spoke enthusiastically about Wharton, perfectly encapsulated the mood of this year’s competition: “We see this as a great opportunity to leverage resources at the university to do something impactful.”
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Drexel Culinary Collaborations and First Place Finishes — Philly News
With so much news happening in Philly business schools, it’s understandable if you need a hand catching up. Here’s your Philly news brief.
Drexel EMBA Class Spurs Culinary Collaboration — LeBow News
Thanks to his Drexel LeBow College of Business EMBA class, chef and restaurateur Kevin Sbraga has found a way back into the kitchen. Sbraga, a chef with prior business experience in the Philadelphia area, came up with the idea for a one-day pop-up kitchen in a Business Problem Solving class taught by associate clinical professor of management Suresh Chandran.
According to a news story on the Drexel website:
“We were talking about innovation as a disrupter, and that made me start to think about how the real estate landscape is changing for retail as well as restaurants,” Sbraga says. “I reached out to a hospitality buddy of mine who has some experience in the tech field. I asked him, ‘How can we create a virtual restaurant? A restaurant experience without the brick and mortar,’ and his response was ‘delivery’.”
Sbraga was one of the first restaurateurs in the city to adopt the now-popular food delivery app Caviar, helping deliver the first batches of Nashville hot chicken to Philly for a special one-day event. “The Hot Chicken was far and away the best-selling dish from The Fat Ham’s menu on Caviar. It was widely regarded as some of the best hot chicken outside of Nashville, so featuring it was an easy choice,” a Caviar spokesperson said.
LeBow EMBA grad and chef Kevin Sbraga was one of the first in the city of Philadelphia to help introduce the now-popular food delivery app Caviar.
You can read more about Sbraga’s food and pop-up concept here.
Penn State Smeal MBAs place first in Fisher Invitational Big Ten+ MBA Case Competition — Penn State Smeal News
Four Penn State Smeal MBAs recently took first place in the Fisher Invitational Big Ten+ MBA Case Competition at Ohio State. The team of first-year students were coached by Nancy Mahon, clinical associate professor of business communication.
Teams had 24 hours to develop a comprehensive pitch outlining concrete recommendations to address the challenges facing Bob Evans restaurant chain. Competition judges included key Bob Evans senior leadership as well as executives from other corporations. The Smeal squad defeated teams from Illinois and Wisconsin in first round before beating second-place Purdue and third-place Michigan State in the finals.
“I’m extremely impressed with our team’s efforts and professionalism,” Mahon said. “I’m especially proud of our students’ representation of Smeal.”
You can read more about the recent Penn State Smeal event here.
Is It Possible to Change Bad Behavior – Permanently? – Knowledge@Wharton
The recently-created Behavior Change for Good Initiative course at The Wharton School, taught by celebrated UPenn professor Angela Duckworth and Wharton’s own Katherine Milkman, looks at the quality of daily living in a broad and curious way.
In the most recent Knowledge@Wharton podcast episode, the two discuss the program’s vast social experiment angles, asking how people can change bad or not-well-liked behavior on a permanent scale. This includes the launch of the StepUp program with fitness chain 24 Hour Fitness. “Duckworth and Milkman are hoping to recruit hundreds of thousands of current and new members of the chain to sign up for the program,” they explain “Those who do will become part of a large-scale tournament in which scientists have developed 57 different paths they hope will lead to positive behavior change.”
“We want to see which ideas truly yield the biggest changes in behavior, not just during the course of the program, which is 28 days, but also in the year following it.”
You can check out the most recent podcast episode here.
Philly’s Fastest MBA Programs
You’re education is important—but so is your time. And for those looking to earn an MBA to accelerate their job growth or fast track their careers, the faster you can earn that degree the faster you can get back to earning money and making an impact in your field.
Most business schools offer a variety of MBA programs for students to choose from, allowing everyone from recent graduates to experienced executives the flexibility to choose a program that best fits into their life and schedule. For driven students who just can’t wait to reap the benefits of their MBA, many schools offer accelerated or One Year MBA programs that shortens the traditional length of time it would take to earn an MBA. While the curriculum can be rigorous, the programs give students the chance to quickly earn their degree, both minimizing the amount of money spent on classes and the income lost from not working full time.
In Philadelphia, there are a number of programs that allow you to go from applicant to degree holder in as little as twelve months. And since a 2017 study ranked Philadelphia as one of the five most-improved economic cities in the U.S., you won’t want to miss your chance to reap the benefits of this economic boom with your degree in hand.
The Fastest Philadelphia MBA Programs
Fox School of Business – Temple University
The Temple University Fox School of Business Executive MBA is one of Philadelphia’s quickest and most flexible MBA degrees. The program takes place over the course of 16 months, with classes delivered on one three-day weekend per month. The program is designed for experienced professionals who want to pursue their degree without giving up their career, and is constructed to accommodate a full-time work schedule.
For those looking for a quick MBA without the ten or more years of work experience an EMBA requires, Temple Fox’s Online MBA can be earned in just 20 months. Outside of one week-long residency at the start of the program, the digital aspect of this degree gives students not just time flexibility but also location. After the residency, this program can be pursued from pretty much anywhere!
LaSalle University School of Business
The School of Business at LaSalle University offers a One-Year MBA program for students with undergraduate experience in business. Knowing that important business pre-requisites for the degree are already out of the way, students can jump right in and earn their MBA in as little as 12 months.
The AACSB accredited One-Year program is an intensive degree program that requires students to take a full course load for the fall and spring semester as well as working through a winter intersession and summer semester. Students in this program also have the opportunity to specialize their degrees in the fields of accounting or finance, and will help prepare graduates to take the CPA and CFA exams by the end of the year. Students will also be paired with an academic adviser throughout the year who will help plan for their future careers. And the success of past graduates of the One-Year MBA program seems pretty clear, joining major companies like Deloitte LP, KPMG, PwC, and JP Morgan Chase, among others.
The La Salle One-Year MBA is among the fastest MBAs you can earn in any major East Coast city.
Haub School of Business – Saint Joseph’s University
The MBA at Saint Joseph University’s Haub School of Business can be completed in as little as one year for students who meet certain undergraduate requirements. Students can pursue this degree in a variety of ways, whether on campus or online, and whether full or part-time. Regardless of format, the MBA at Haub gives students the option to choose major for their degree, among high-demand disciplines like marketing, data intelligence, finance, international business and more.
The overall data which shows that those with an MBA earn more and have more career opportunities most certainly rings true for graduates of Haub’s MBA program. Nearly 76 percent of graduates said their SJU MBA helped their career advance, and 73 percent reported a salary increase as a result of their graduation. With the chance to limit the time of an SJU MBA to just 12 months, students can work their way to these benefits even faster.
Lehigh University College of Business and Economics
The 1-MBA at the Lehigh University College of Business and Economics is a full-time, one year MBA program designed for professionals looking to either accelerate their career or looking to change careers and move towards a business-related field. The rigorous program, which is located all on campus, cuts the time it takes to pursue a traditional Lehigh MBA in half.
Unique benefits of the 1-MBA at Lehigh include a team of mentors and coaches assigned to students even before they arrive on campus, including a faculty adviser, industry mentor and career coach who will help guide students through their year-long program. The program is also centered around a consulting practicum, which both trains students in practical skills for consulting and provides hands-on experience in the field. The 1-MBA program also focuses intensely on the professional development of every student in the program, offering personalized coaching and global immersion study opportunities that can help shape and prepare students for future business success.
