Are you RBC’s next great innovator?

RBC today announced the call for entries for the second annual RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge™. The winner will be announced in February 2008 and the top teams will compete for more than $45,000 in total prizes.

This year’s challenge asks university and college students from across Canada to “describe an innovation, idea or concept that Canadian financial institutions should consider to make it easier for clients to do business with us.”

“Innovation is fundamental to everything we do at RBC and the challenge is a great source of new ideas coming directly from students who will help shape our future,” said Dr. Anita Sands, head, Innovation and Process Design at RBC. “We listened to what students told us last year, and we are in the process of implementing two of the winning ideas.”

RBC’s peer-to-peer (p2p) information exchange site— www.rbcp2p.com— is a new initiative based on an idea from last year’s challenge. Last year more than 269 teams registered for the challenge from 45 universities across Canada.

The challenge also leverages several web 2.0 and social media tools to keep students engaged and up to date. “This year we’re implementing our version of ’Innovation Idol’ - where students will vote for their favourite idea to be one of our team finalists,” said Sands. “We’re also sending students text alert reminders for major milestones; a Google Mashup feature to track team submissions linked to user team profile pages; an avatar innovator quiz; and an innovator blog for advice and guidance on the challenge.”

Working in teams of three or four, students must submit a unique and innovative idea related to the challenge. Teams must register their intention to submit a proposal online before October 22, 2007. All completed proposals must be submitted by November 23, 2007.

Submissions will be evaluated by the RBC Applied Innovation team and narrowed down to the top 15 submissions. These 15 submissions will then be reviewed by the RBC Innovation Council and the top four submissions will be chosen. The council will also select five additional submissions for the peer voting selection process. A short synopsis of each entry that is eligible for peer voting will be posted on www.nextgreatinnovator.com and the entry receiving the most votes in the voting period will be chosen as the fifth finalist in January 2008.

The top five teams will be brought to Toronto for final evaluation by the RBC Next Great Innovator judging panel consisting of some of RBC’s top executives. The final evaluations and awards ceremony will take place on February 22, 2008 in Toronto. For more information on the challenge, visit www.nextgreatinnovator.com.