“A humanities major walks into business school…” It sounds like the beginning of a cheesy joke. But that was me in September 2021 when I (virtually) walked into class at Ivey Business School, my camera on and ring light at the ready.
This was the beginning of my Master of Science in Digital Management. While I was excited to take on the challenge of a brand-new discipline, I’ll admit I was also nervous. Many of my classmates came from business, finance, engineering, and economics backgrounds and arrived to class with a foundational understanding of our subjects. In the beginning, I was uncharacteristically quiet as I gathered my bearings. Fast forward to April and I was full of confidence as my team won the Digital Management x Deloitte Digital Case Competition, coming first in our entire cohort.
So, how did I go from quiet to confident? I finally learned the truth: businesses need people with diverse disciplines and perspectives. My background in Anthropology and Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto equipped me with an empathetic mindset, strong values, and the ability to think interdisciplinarily - all things that the private sector must prioritize in our ever-changing world.
In the Case Competition, our cohort was urged to deliver solutions to a challenge faced by Roche - a 125-year-old biotech company that has dedicated itself to transformative innovative solutions globally. They asked: How might Roche continue to deliver integrated personalised healthcare solutions to communities that lack access to digital resources?
We were given two days to understand this problem, ideate an innovative solution, and develop a compelling presentation. Then, we would present our idea to respected judges from Ivey Business School, Deloitte Digital, and Roche, not to mention all our peers!
The solution we created challenged orthodoxies about how health data should be stored in Canada, with a focus on the needs of Indigenous Peoples. In Canada, there are 1.67 million self-identified Indigenous Peoples. Despite the wealth of this country, only 24% of Indigenous Peoples have access to quality, high-speed internet. We knew that health outcomes were becoming increasingly dependent on access to technology, such as telehealth, fitness trackers, and more. Given the existing health inequities faced by Indigenous communities, we believed that the discrepancies in digital access was a critical gap to close. We presented a software we named Iota, which leveraged decentralized cloud technologies for Indigenous Peoples to have access to and ownership over their own health data.
Ultimately, we won not because of our idea, but because of how thoroughly we centered this value: co-creation drives successful innovation. Through my undergraduate degree and my time in the non-profit sector, I understood that for an idea to have a positive impact on people, it must be developed by and with those impacted by the problem. For a pharmaceutical like Roche, that means using their power and privilege to empower people to drive the conversation about how to identify and address their needs. By choosing our team as the winner, judges were sending a strong message about how critical this mentality is to compete in today’s world.
Now, when I’m in class, I raise my hand often because I’m confident in the value I bring. I know that by speaking up, I’m contributing to a knowledge exchange that will hopefully build a private sector that is empathetic, trusting of diverse perspectives, and respectful of grassroots approaches.
The challenges we are experiencing in this world - from climate change to inequality - demand the power of interdisciplinary thinking. And our capacity to respond to them is only limited by our openness to new perspectives and the value they bring. I’m grateful to the Case Competition for solidifying this lesson for me and reminding me to stay vocal about my values and perspectives, to build a private sector that is deeply empathetic and equitable.