TAINA Wins First Place at the 2017 Global New Venture Challenge

On Thursday, March 16, seven executive MBA finalist teams presented their business plans at the finals of the 2017 Global New Venture Challenge (GNVC) in Chicago. The competing teams, which were comprised of winners from the GNVC semi-finals held earlier this year at Chicago Booth’s Chicago, London, and Hong Kong campuses, brought an array of ideas and technologies to this year’s program.

Teams included KinderMate, TAINA, and Tusome! from London, FuSure and Project Gardener from Hong Kong, and Intelligent Labor Design and Tribetayling from Chicago.

“We are so proud of all of our GNVC finalists,” said Waverly Deutsch, clinical professor of entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth and the professor for the GNVC. “Supporting entrepreneurship globally is one of the most powerful ways the Booth brand and experience can impact economies all over the world.”

Kicking off the day, Deutsch introduced the seven finalist teams and welcomed the panel of distinguished judges. From there team’s brought their A-games in hopes of being named champion. This year’s GNVC saw a three-way tie for second place – FuSure, Project Gardener, and Tusome! ended the day as runners up for the 2017 competition. FuSure is a currency remittance service offering an investment and savings product for overseas Filipino workers. Project Gardener provides integrated accounting solutions for communities in Myanmar. And, Tusome! (“Let’s study!” in Swahili) provides certified online professional training programs for businesses across Africa. Each of these teams took home $5,000 in prize money.

TAINA was crowned the 2017 GNVC champion, taking home $15,000 in prize money. TAINA helps financial institutions comply with tax transparency regulations by digitizing and automatically validating the hundreds of millions of tax-related forms they must process annually saving costs and reducing the risk of fines. The team is also invited to compete in the NVC finals this spring.

Now in its tenth year, the GNVC is an expansion of the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge (NVC), and is designed exclusively for Chicago Booth’s executive MBA students. It debuted in 2008 to accommodate the growing entrepreneurial aspirations of Booth’s executive MBA students on each of its three global campuses – North America, Europe, and Asia.

Congratulations to all teams that participated in this year’s program and thanks to those who served as judges, coaches, and mentors who advised the teams throughout the program.

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