{"id":197565,"date":"2023-04-14T11:08:46","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T15:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=197565"},"modified":"2023-04-14T11:08:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T15:08:46","slug":"three-compassionate-alumni-win-competition-offer-ideas-to-help-make-a-wish-reach-more-connecticut-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/04\/three-compassionate-alumni-win-competition-offer-ideas-to-help-make-a-wish-reach-more-connecticut-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Compassionate Alumni Win Competition, Offer Ideas to Help Make-A-Wish Reach More Connecticut Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three recent alumni, all with competitive spirits and a soft spot in their hearts for children battling illness, are the winners of the recent School of Business\u2019 Global Alumni Case Competition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The competition was designed to help the non-profit Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut<\/strong> to reach more children who could benefit from the services, more sharply communicate the organization\u2019s purpose, and draw an expanded team of volunteers.<\/p>\n

The winning team included Cara Tran<\/strong> \u201922, a bioengineering and biomedical engineering major, who works as a PRISM sales engineer at Henkel in Connecticut; Prabhas KC<\/strong> \u201922, an economics major and works in GTM strategy at ServiceNow in Boston; and Alexander Kim<\/strong> \u201922, a finance major, working as a risk analyst at Barclays in New York.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Left to right: Cara Tran \u201922, Prabhas KC \u201922, Alexander Kim\u2019 22, members of the winning team for this year’s Global Alumni Case Competition (Contributed photos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Childrens\u2019 Wishes Range from Tropical Vacations to New Pets<\/h3>\n

Since its inception in 1986, the Connecticut chapter of Make-A-Wish has granted 3,800 wishes to children, ranging from a trip to Hawaii, to getting a puppy, to spending a day as a firefighter.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s leadership had specific goals for the UConn alumni participants. One is to clear up a misperception that the organization only serves children with terminal illnesses. In fact, many of the Make-A-Wish beneficiaries recover from their health battles and lead long lives. The Make-A-Wish team also wants to reach more families in urban and rural areas, which traditionally have a lower participation rate, and to expand their volunteer base.<\/p>\n

For Tran, who knows someone who benefitted from Make-A-Wish, the challenge was deeply personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great opportunity for all of us to work together, using our different backgrounds, to solve real-world problems,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cIt was impactful for us and, I hope for the organization as well.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n

The winning team offered many suggestions, including the adoption of a slogan \u201cTogether we\u2019ll Wish\u2019\u2019; recommended using college student ambassadors to reach out to target audiences; proposed targeted social media usage; and recommended highlighting stories of children now doing well and also spotlighting volunteers.<\/p>\n

Kim and his teammates, who won a Unilever case challenge as undergrads, gave up most of their Sundays to work on the project. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is great that UConn offers the opportunity for alumni to continue to be involved with events such as this case competition,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a pleasure getting to work with Prabhas and Cara over the past few weeks and I am excited to turn these ideas into action in partnership with Make-A-Wish.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough none of us had an abundance of spare time, we all had the heart for the case competition,\u2019\u2019 KC said. \u201cWorking for such a reputable organization made it easier to commit our time. Intellectually, the experience forced us to think about solving unique challenges and coming up with solutions quickly. We devoted a great deal of energy to thinking about the details of our proposal. We loved the real-world experience and learning something new.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

After discovering so much about Make-A-Wish, KC said he is hoping to become a volunteer for the organization.<\/p>\n

Event Creates a Mini UConn \u2018Think Tank\u2019<\/h3>\n

Make-A-Wish has access to a $30,000 grant that can be used to implement new strategic plans. Kristen Moran<\/strong>, director of marketing and communications at Make-A-Wish Connecticut, said the organization was grateful for the ideas from all the participating teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciated the time spent by the participants and the creativity with which they approached the case,\u2019\u2019 Moran said. \u201cThey did a lot of background research and presented carefully thought-out approaches to the issues, including interesting details and ideas. Each presentation addressed the issues differently, providing us with a range of actionable ideas.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

This is the second year that the School of Business\u2019 Office of External and Alumni Engagement has offered an alumni case competition and organizer Jillian Comolli<\/strong> said it remains a popular event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Make-A-Wish Foundation\u2019s goal to reach more families who could benefit from its services seemed to strike a powerful chord with our alumni,\u2019\u2019 Comolli said. \u201cNot only is this an avenue for alumni to come together and demonstrate their skills, but also an opportunity to help a local non-profit in the process. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we had increased interest from international alums and alums from different schools and colleges across UConn, with over a dozen teams registering for the competition,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cWe love the collective \u2018think tank\u2019 that our UConn alumni have created.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The competition was designed to help the non-profit Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut to reach more children who could benefit from the services, more sharply communicate the organization\u2019s purpose, and draw an expanded team of volunteers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":197567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1862],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-197565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-busn"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 08:50:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197565"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197569,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197565\/revisions\/197569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/197567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197565"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=197565"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=197565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}