Student case study team wins scholarships and $250k for DSU

A team of students recently competed as finalists in a marketing case study competition and won Delaware State University some serious cash while at the same time winning scholarship money for themselves.

The DSU team named “The Innovative Hornets” – Carl Jennings, Ava Larkin, Lorenzo Perales, Nya Stokes, and Imani Wulff-Cochrane – was among the top four teams to make it to the finalist round of the Goldman-Sachs Market Madness: HBCU Possibilities Program. Held in New York City, The Innovative Hornets competed against teams from Spelman College, Howard University, and Florida A&M University.

The competition was a semester-long case study competition that involved key financial concepts and real-world applications.

“We came up with an innovative sports watch called the Nike Versa 365,” said Ms. Stokes, a freshman Financial Planning/Wealth Management major from Chicago. “Our tagline was “Redefining Wellness Access” so that people could see what their bodies were capable of.”

Despite finishing in 4th place in the final round, The Innovative Hornets won $250,000 for Delaware State University, and each team member received a $10,000 scholarship.

Although Ms. Stokes is only a freshman, she is already a veteran of case study competitions.

“This is my third case-study competition, but this was the longest I have worked on,” Ms. Stokes said. “I did one in high school, and then at DSU, my team won the College of Business’ Deep Day case study competition this year.”

For Ms. Larkin, it was her first case study competition. “And I never worked in a group for an extended period of time,” said the sophomore Accounting major from Woodbridge, Va. “It was good to collaborate and get a bunch of different ideas from students in different majors.”

The Goldman-Sachs competition was won by Spelman College.