UOIT Engineering student wins his second top prize

University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) Mechanical Engineering and Management (2012) graduate Mario Vasilescu has received his second major competition award of the year. Vasilescu was presented with the first-place prize at the Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference (CUTC), an annual gathering of technology students from around Canada.

Leading up to the conference held at the University of Toronto, Deloitte Canada, a professional financial services firm which also monitors future trends in technology, media and telecommunications launched a competition called the iQuest Challenge. Through Deloitte’s Innovation Academy online platform, conference delegates were asked to propose solutions for one topic: higher education, social media, analytics or energy and resources.

Vasilescu proposed a solution in the social media category, addressing the question: ‘Social media is an increasingly important channel for companies to reach their current and prospective customers, with the goal to build a genuine affinity and long-term relationship. How can social media be leveraged by companies to connect more effectively with their customers?’ 

“My solution was a social media platform that allowed for efficient deployment of crowdsourced product development, utilizing a unique combination of iterative community feedback and a gamified rewards system designed to foster brand ambassadors,” explained Vasilescu. “The concept provides long-term engagement and affinity through multi-layered, nuanced user involvement, while also providing a product development process that boosts brand power and pads a company's bottom line. The idea was fully branded and featured a high-level interface design.”

The idea was presented to a panel of 70 CUTC delegates that included Deloitte Canada’s Director of Research Duncan Stewart. Of the 72 ideas submitted through the competition, nine were selected overall with three finalists in the  social media category. Vasilescu won first place in his category and received his award from Deloitte Canada's Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the closing ceremonies.

As a reward for his input and participation, Vasilescu also received a ticket to the World Congress on Information Technology in Montreal, Quebec, where the CEO’s of companies like Intel and Oracle will be speaking in October. 

Earlier in the year, Vasilescu won first prize at the undergraduate and master’s degree competition Focus 2040 with his high school friend Cindy Chan, a Master of Accounting student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. The Focus 2040 competition had challenged the students to envision the workplace in the year 2040. The two won the $5,000 prize, defeating 25 other teams in the competition.

Vasilescu's five-year Mechanical Engineering and Management degree at UOIT combined courses offered by both the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science and the Faculty of Business and Information Technology. Since graduating in June, Vasilescu has been working on two start-up companies and has become the communications director for the 2013 Design Our Tomorrow conference. In January, he’ll begin a six-month internship in France that was secured through the Focus 2040 competition.