Rochester Review
January-February 2010
Vol. 72, No. 3
Story as a PDF
Departments
In Review
WINNING IDEA: Dan (Eva) Xie ’10 (left), Jennifer Burger ’10 (center), Elaina Stover ’10 (right), Justin Peczkowski ’10 (MS) (back left), and Eric Wisch ’10 (back right) were one of two U.S. teams to earn recognition in a global contest to encourage saving money. (Photo: Adam Fenster)Everyone’s heard of passing the buck—but passing the pig? That’s the invention of a group of Rochester students who were named global winners in the 2009 Stanford Global Innovations Tournament.
The nearly 1,000 teams that entered the contest were asked to come up with creative ideas on how to make saving money fun and then convey those ideas through short videos posted to YouTube. Three Rochester teams entered the competition; the winning group—one of just two U.S. teams and 22 teams worldwide to win—submitted a video called “Pass the Pig” in which they promote a Web site of their own design where people could share their ideas for saving money.
“We liked the idea of a project that combines viral marketing and social utility,” says team member Eric Wisch ’10, a political science major and a KEY scholar from Wellesley, Mass.
“It’s implementable,” adds teammate Elaina Stover ’10, an Akron, Ohio, native, a neuroscience major, and a Take Five scholar. “We want to develop it into a real business plan.
“I don’t think the idea is done. The pig is still being passed.”
—Kathleen McGarvey
To see the Rochester team’s entry, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvgG0KxZt38.
