BTM student wins Deloitte’s Innovation Challenge

Congratulations to Ted Rogers School of Management’s Sean McQuillan for winning “The Innovation Challenge” at Deloitte.

In the spring, the Business Technology Management co-op student landed a position as an Analyst in the Global Technology Services division at the management consulting company Deloitte Global. The internship program is an American one and this was the first year the position was offered in Canada. It was made up of over 90 Americans and eight Canadians, and McQuillan was the only student from the Ted Rogers School. 

As part of the program, students were separated into groups of six to eight people and given an assignment called “The Innovation Challenge.” The goal of the challenge was to come up with a solution for new hires and interns to create “Moments That Matter.” The teams worked virtually on this project over ten weeks. 

McQuillan’s team came up with an idea called D-Shadow. It was a shadow program for new hires and interns to make connections with people outside of their business area, and also learn about new business areas that they might have an interest in. For example, if someone was  working in Cloud Security at Deloitte, but had an interest in Accounts Receivable, the person could go on D-Shadow and find someone who is willing to be shadowed and connect with them to find a date where they could go into the office and spend a day with them.   

The groups presented their ideas in a Powerpoint presentation over Zoom to six Deloitte executives who provided feedback. Later in the week, on the last day of the internship program, all the interns were brought together virtually to announce the winners. McQuillan was part of the winning team, which received $1,000 USD per person. 

“It felt pretty amazing to win the competition,” says McQuillan. “We were the last group to present, and based on the feedback we received, there weren't too many negatives that the executives gave us.”

“In a recent interview I had with Deloitte's Innovation team, I mentioned my work in the Innovation Challenge, and the interviewer actually had heard about our idea,” he adds. “I was surprised since he wasn't in the presentation or involved in any of the business units. It felt really great for him to mention it to me because it meant that our idea was strong enough to be talked about throughout the company.”