Participating in the first ever virtual Schulich RISE Competition!

My teammates and I participated in the first ever virtual Schulich RISE Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) competition earlier this term. It was definitely an interesting experience as we did not have the chance to meet in person and prepare for the competition as we normally would have. Despite this, we were able to overcome these difficulties by using technology to simulate an in-person competition environment. We held virtual meetings through video calls to bounce ideas off each other and practice for our presentation. One key factor to our success was that we prepared for questions we thought the judges would ask and we rehearsed them together. 

Participating in the CSR category was an eye-opening experience for all of us. As university students, many of us have a personal laptop that we can use for our schoolwork, co-op jobs, as well as just Netflix binge sessions. However, our case showed us that there are so many Canadian students without a personal laptop to use.  We quickly realized that many people probably have old laptops just lying around the house, that they could potentially donate to students in need - especially during the current pandemic! Now more than ever it is important to ensure that every student has access to online resources. The competition not only allowed us to develop our critical thinking and soft skills, but it also taught us about current issues many of us are facing. 

Overall, we successfully collaborated to pitch our recommendation to the judges and we placed third!