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Innovation Update, Join Applied Innovation and Happy Holidays!
I hope all of our Challenge competitors have had a good exam period (if that’s possible…). I wanted to update the Challenge competitors and supporters on a number of things from the Challenge to a few projects we are working on in the Applied Innovation Lab to the GiftPass status.
In the Applied Innovation Lab:
At any time we have a number of projects in the Applied Innovation lab, hoping to develop ideas which will transform the way we do business here at RBC. Over the next few months I will report on some of the things we are working on. You may have seen press releases related to the Visa Paywave project, which is starting off in our lab and will be growing to a staff trial and then customer trial in the near future. See the news release. The lab is also working on developing one of the ideas from last year’s Innovator Challenge into viable technology with a real business case. Here’s a lab project you can participate in- try this and tell us what you think!
Be a part of Applied Innovation!
RBC Applied Innovation and IBM has partnered together to trial IBM Easy Web on this very site. Easy Web is designed to improve the web browsing experience for persons with limited vision or hearing. Keep in mind this is very much a beta, but we have done our best to build this site with accessibility in mind, and have worked closely with a great team from IBM to work out any initial bugs.
From our friends at IBM:
“IBM Easy Web Browsing is a solution that helps novice users, seniors and people with limited vision or eye fatigue to access Web site information. It allows users to enlarge text and characters and change background color, which can help improve Web page readability for people with low vision. Using IBM text-to-speech technology, Easy Web Browsing can also read text aloud with adjustable speed and volume control. Users point the mouse to select a sentence and the system reads it. Sound effects can be assigned to events such as download completion to help people with low vision more easily exchange online information.”
To automatically try Easy Web click on either link below (French and English versions avaialble). If you have trouble loading it (remember it is a beta!) try the manual loading process available at:
Easy Web Manual Installation
Try it, think about what it would mean to you if you had limited vision or hearing, and post your feedback in the blog comments or email. Feel free to circulate the link, the more people evaluating it the better.
For English:
click here
For French:
click here
Challenge Update:
We are just completing the second round of Judging. The 105 completed proposals have been narrowed down and this round will decide which of those proposals will be evaluated by the Innovation Council. It’s all hush-hush right now, we will announce the Council’s choices for the top 4 finalists and peer voting candidates on Jan 16th.
We have been testing the Peer Voting mechanism so that when we announce we can open the voting for you to choose the 5th finalist!
We are in the midst of planning the final competition day, including the introductory event, the presentations and the gala awards ceremony. We're aming to create a fantstic experience for the finalists!
GiftPasses
Finally, we are processing the GiftPasses for all students who submitted entries on time. The codes will be released soon and emailed to each of you in early January. If you did not receive the general confirmation email sent December 6th, please email nextgreatinnovator@rbc.com to confirm or correct your email address.
Happy Holidays from RBC Applied Innovation and the Innovator Challenge team!
The Submissions are in!
Congratulations to all teams completing their submissions and and thanks for your hard work in meeting the deadline.
It was an interesting couple of days from Nov 21 to midnight Nov 23. Almost 90% of the entries arrived at the Nextgreatinnovator@rbc.com inbox in the last 20 hours, and over 50% between 6 pm and midnight on the 23rd. We are very happy to see a strong conversion rate between teams who registered and teams completing the proposal. A number of teams dropped out before the deadline, but to thier credit they sent a quick email. Politeness is always appreciated!
Here are a few updates:
- We received 105 completed proposals this year. We will publish more details about the schools and regions who have submitted entries here at a later date.
- The GIFTPASS process has been started. This does take a few weeks to process procurement and set up the access codes for notification but we should have the pass to eligible students before Christmas.
- A number of Team Profiles have been reviewed and approved- please be patient as this process is not automated. If you want to add or complete your profile and have any problems please email this account. Once a profile has been approved it is locked in and you have to email us if you want to update it.
- The next key date in the process is January 16th, when we will announce the 4 finalists and the remaining peer voting candidates. Peer voting will be opened that day as well, with the announcement of the 5th finalist following on January 30th.
- The final competition day is February 21st, here in Toronto.
- Please keep an eye on the Innovator Blog in the coming weeks. We will use it for updates on the judging process, feedback on things we see in the entries and new areas of Innovation we are pursuing here at RBC.
Finally, I wanted to highlight my favorite team name for this year- "Yambac" from UBC. I have no idea what Yambac means, but the name somehow sticks with you!
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The Innovator Blog is your inside source for advice and guidance on the RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge™.
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