Andrews University students won second place in the 2023 Michigan Colleges Alliance’s College Community Challenge, also known as the MCA-C3. The four-person team included undergraduates Sofiia Ialysheva (sophomore, finance), Jack Proctor (senior, marketing), Ifeolu Kolade (junior, business administration), and Ha Eun Park (senior, medical laboratory sciences). The team sponsor was Matías Soto, director of the Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship. The second-place award provided each student on the team a $2,000 scholarship from the Henry Ford Learning Institute as well as a stipend of $500 for participating in the program.
The Michigan Colleges Alliance consists of fourteen independent colleges and universities in Michigan and hosts the College Community Challenge. The MCA-C3 is a challenge in which students are given the opportunity to address unmet needs in their community, work with local business partners, and compete for scholarships. Six of the fourteen MCA schools participated in this year’s competition, with each school sending a team of four students and one faculty advisor. Soto explained, “Teams were required to identify an unmet need in their college community, find a community partner, develop a solution, and submit a video and written proposal. The problems needed to be identified in the following topic areas: mobility, water, social enterprise, safety, workforce development, community need.”
The team chose to address a lack of advanced technological awareness among entrepreneurs in the nearby community of Benton Harbor. They worked with Emerge Innovation Hub, a Benton Harbor-based organization that aims to support local businesses and entrepreneurs.
The students proposed creating “an online platform and app that connects Andrews University students, faculty, and staff with Benton Harbor’s young entrepreneurs. The platform and app will be a place where people can add videos, documents, and website links about technology.” In conjunction with Emerge Innovation Hub, the proposal also included a monthly course where participants would be able to further their exposure to different aspects of technology, including web development, coding, and graphic design. Additionally, the team plans to host local events and competitions to stimulate participants’ interest and maintain engagement.
Although the competition was largely held virtually, the Andrews team worked together to formulate their proposal, including communicating with Emerge Innovation Hub, creating presentations, drafting a written document of their plan, and filming a video of their proposal and presentation they submitted to the Michigan Colleges Alliance. All MCA-C3 teams also attended several Design Thinking Workshops throughout the semester.
The team faced several challenges during the competition. Kolade shared that they “encountered obstacles during the process of formulating a comprehensive solution and establishing partnerships with local community programs,” and Park described the struggles of time management and communication as full-time students.
Despite the difficulties, Kolade still recommends the experience for students because “it not only cultivates empathy but also enables active engagement with the local community.” Park also commented on the value of her experience as part of the MCA-C3 team, noting that “experience might not be the best teacher, but it is a great teacher.”
Although this was the first year Andrews University participated in the challenge, Soto says the team plans to continue participating in the MCA-C3 competition again next year, despite one of the team members graduating. They will be accepting applications for a fourth team member in the fall.
The original version of this story was posted on the Andrews University website.
