ICE Spring 2019 - Building the Smart City Future of Waterloo Region with Communitech

Sept. 4, 2019

Each year, third-year BBA students complete the Integrated Case Exercise (ICE), presented by CIBC. This is an opportunity for students to hear from professionals in industry about a current challenge they are facing, and then develop and present a solution by applying what they have learned in all their classes. The ICE Spring 2019 case addressed how to “Build the Smart City Future of Waterloo Region” and looked at opportunities for Communitech’s Smart Cities initiative. 

In 2019, Waterloo Region was recognized as a finalist in Impact Canada’s $50M smart cities challenge, but ultimately lost to Montreal. Communitech asked BBA students to look at ways to build-out the smart city initiative here in Waterloo Region while addressing the issues in the Impact Canada challenge.  The main objectives of the Impact Canada challenge were to realize outcomes that matter to residents, empower communities to innovate, forge new partnerships and networks, and spread the benefit to all Canadians.

With teams assigned, the case in hand, and a short amount of time to prepare ideas, students worked tirelessly to submit their proposals and ready themselves for the first round of presentations. Through rigorous competition, the final four teams emerged from the more than 80 that participated in ICE Spring 2019.

The four finalist teams presented their ideas to a panel of judges from Communitech, including Ian McDonald, Chief Customer Officer; Avvey Peters, Chief Strategy Officer; and Chris Willsher, Director, Data Platforms.

“Thank you for your time and energy to this case – it was a big challenge but we know you’d be up to it,” said McDonald while addressing the students. “What you’re doing is going to make a big impact. You are such strong presenters who showed great creativity in your ideas. We were all impressed.” McDonald finished by encouraging students to stay in KW after graduation and consider careers in tech.

The finalists each presented very different opportunities for the smart city future of Waterloo Region:

Team 79 – Prime Time 79s

Team Members: Keaton Bertrand, Tiffany Chan, Charlie Gallant, Yelyzaveta (Liza) Leshchynska, Ashish Puri, Tyler Teal

Solution: Smart waste control through the implementation of smart trash cans, self-driving garbage trucks and IR sensors to deploy waste management solutions.

Team 75 – Byte 75 Consulting Group

Team Members: Andrew Cays, Paul Costello, Felix Guo, Daniel Marquis, Roger Segal, Jelena Vukadin

Solution: Smarterloo Data Network app to connect the data collected throughout city initiatives in a user-friendly interface that provides neighbours with the information that matters most to them.

Team 74

Team Members: Oliver Blatt, Delina Ghebrekristos, Trudy Minbashian, Andrew Ross, Michael Trunzo, Matthew Zhu

Solution: Improve mobility in the face of rapid population growth using sensors and data to improve road and traffic conditions.

Team 71

Team Members: Braxton Carter, Emily Garcia, Alexandra Jidkina, Logan McCarles, Lauren Rock, Duncan Wilson

Solution: Green energy initiatives through the implementation of kinetic energy tiles in public places and roadways. 

“ICE is always one of my favourite parts of the academic year,” said Micheál Kelly, Dean of the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics, who sat in for the final presentations. ”This was a great demonstration of the quality of students. I’m always impressed by the presentation skills and professionalism of the Lazaridis School students.”

After their deliberation, the judges awarded Team 79 with the winning title. In her closing remarks, Peters told the group: “You all put a ton of energy, effort and thought into this case – thank you!”

Congratulations to all ICE participants! To see more of the competition, check out our photo album.