Twitter was at the center of the Scripps Innovation Challenge on Monday, as the winning team demonstrated how to monetize a popular account on the social network.
The first place team, named “E.G. 501,” comprised solely of international students and was awarded $10,000 for its presentation that started as the thesis of a master’s student who was on the team.
“We used a lot of visuals to simplify the presentation,” said Enakshi Roy, a Ph.D. candidate studying journalism.
Roy and her teammates, Ehsan Ardjmand, a doctoral candidate studying industrial systems engineering and Naeem Gul, a graduate student studying international development studies, used a program called CATS to cluster users from the social network into the target market.
Team Casino Loyale took home two awards, including the second place prize of $5,000 and a diversity prize of $5,000. This prize was awarded to the team because its solution provided insight into audiences who are typically considered underrepresented. That team created a loyalty program for the Scripps Company.
“It was nice to be able to learn something completely different than usual,” said Kelsey Hoak, a junior studying journalism, whose team was made up of entirely journalism students.
Hoak said learning the business and marketing side of things was a rewarding part of the experience.
Five honorable mention winners were also picked out of the original 31 entries and received $1,000 each. These recipients were Team Pivot, Team Let’s Connect, Team Athena, Team Digital Convergence and Team AIRheads.
“I think that this challenge is one of the best educational experiences (students) have at Ohio University,” said Scott Titsworth, dean of the Scripps College of Communication.
The panelist of judges comprised journalism professionals, including Retha Hill, executive director of the Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab at Arizona State University.
“I could tell how hard all the teams worked. The winning teams just had that extra push, that knowledge of their market,” Hill said. “I really like the fact that (the teams) had real world problems. I thought a number had outside-the-box ideas.”
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