A team of MBA students from the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas won the 2013 Humana Healthcare Case Competition.
For the third year in a row, Humana challenged students across the country to work on creating solutions for some of the healthcare industry’s biggest problems. Finalists came from schools like Emory University, Rutgers University and Columbia University, with the UT Dallas team taking the top spot.
The competition gave the participating students three days and a hypothetical budget of $50 million to create an investment recommendation for a product or service that encouraged people to be proactive about their health, particularly targeting senior citizens, middle-aged individuals or young adults.
Humana awards the first place team with $10,000, the second place team with $5000 and the rest of the top eight teams with $1000 each. The first and second place teams also get the opportunity to interview with a Humana Infusion recruiter.
Students nationwide can register for the competition, and Humana invites the top eight teams to pitch their ideas to the company’s executives in Louisville, Kentucky at the company headquarters.
The top eight teams are broken into two groups and the groups compete against one another. One finalist is chosen from each group, and those finalists do a final pitch to a panel of executives to determine a winner.
Each team has to be made up of four graduate students from the same school. At least one team member must be in his or her first year of graduate school and another must be in his or her second year.
Full-time UT Dallas graduate students, Madison Moore, Charlotte Hamm, Shane Damico and Steve Buchalter took first place in the 2013 competition with a plan to assist senior citizens with taking their medications properly.
This is the second time in three years that a team from UT Dallas has won the competition.
Andy Cyders, one of the winning UT Dallas students from the 2011 competition, counts the experience as one of the best moments of his MBA program.
“As a finalist, I was motivated by the chance to interview for Infusion, Humana’s leadership development program, and took the opportunity to network with Humana associates,” Cyders said in an online testimonial for the competition.
No information has been released yet for the 2014 competition. Keep an eye on the competition website for the latest information and future contest dates.
