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Challenge hopes to pump up talent pipeline

Melinda Waldrop //October 22, 2019//

Challenge hopes to pump up talent pipeline

Melinda Waldrop //October 22, 2019//

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This article first appeared in the Oct. 21 print edition of the Columbia Regional Business Report.

If Caleb Green claims a prize in the 2019 Historically Black Colleges and Universities Innovation Challenge, being held Thursday and Friday in Chattanooga, Tenn., it should come as a surprise to exactly no one.

The Claflin University honors college senior has a habit of reaching his goals.

The recipient of a Gates Millennium scholarship out of Metter (Ga.) High School in 2016, Green is planning to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan, where he completed an internship in health management and policy this summer that spurred his interest in a heath care administration career. The president of his fraternity and a campus business organization, as well as relief pitcher on the baseball team, Green intends to bring that same focus to the innovation competition.

Representatives from Unum and Colonial Life attended a career readiness day at Benedict College on Oct. 1. Among the Benedict attendees was student Taneia O'Bannon (sixth from left), who will participate in the inaugural Historically Black Colleges and Universities Innovation Challenge in Chattanooga Oct. 24-25. (Photo/Ben Herring/Colonial Life)The two-day event, an initiative of Columbia-based supplemental insurance company Colonial Life and Chattanooga-based parent company Unum Group, will feature eight four-person teams made up of juniors and seniors recruited from HBCUs within 250 miles of Unum office locations in Columbia, Chattanooga and Baton Rouge, La. The teams will solve real-world challenges facing the insurance industry while networking with company officials and learning about career opportunities.

“Now that I know the direction I want to go, I want to learn as much as I possibly can about each of the different aspects of it,” said Green, a business administration major with a concentration in management. “I’ll be able to be more informed. I’ll have more experience and I’ll be more aware about the fields, generally and holistically. That way, when it’s time for me to become a chief operating officer myself, I’ll be more knowledgeable and more skilled.”

That kind of drive is precisely what the creators of the Innovation Challenge hoped to attract.

“We want to make sure that we have the best talent so that we can provide the best service to our customers in an efficient and innovative way,” said Wade Hinton, vice president of inclusion and diversity at Colonial Life/Unum. “We know that for us, some of that great talent is right there in our backyard, and we want to make sure that we take advantage of it.”

Taneia O’Bannon, a senior at Benedict College, decided to participate in the challenge after learning about the benefits that Colonial Life’s supplement policies, such as disability and critical illness plans, provide to those in need.

“I want to reach out to others and help them find a health care solution,” O’Bannon said. “I thought it (the competition) would be a good fit for me. … I imagine it’s going to be a challenge, especially because you’re going to meet up with other people that are going to be different from you and you’ve never met, and you have to solve a real-world problem about insurance. I think it’s going to be difficult but it’s going to be good, too, the experience.”

While the $5,000 first-place prize would no doubt come in handy for soon-to-be college graduates, O’Bannon and Green are also hoping to make career connections.

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” Green said. “I’ve seen it. I’ve been to a few competitions, and even if people didn’t win, they talked to somebody, and because they talked to somebody, somebody knew somebody else, and then the next thing you know, boom —they’ve got a triad of connections (and) resources.”

Marcus Shaw is CEO of The Company Lab, a nonprofit business management consulting firm in Chattanooga that is partnering with Unum to host the Innovation Challenge. He said interest in the inaugural event was high.

“We’re very happy with the students that were accepted into the program,” Shaw said. “I think that there are a number of colleges and universities out there in the HBCU domain that have incredible talent, and I think this represents a really great step in building some relationships with those schools and universities. When we decide to do something like this again, I think we’ll have even more response and potentially the opportunity to support more teams.”

The Company Lab has a history of helping organizations bolster their talent pipelines. Last year, CO.LAB partnered with Chattanooga transportation startup FreightWaves to produce a supply chain case competition.

“One of the big takeaways that we saw from that event was that CO.LAB, with our mission around innovation and entrepreneurship, could also be a good convener of talent to solve innovative challenges — not only at startups but also with legacy businesses,” Shaw said. “Bringing that innovative way of thinking to solving some of the challenges that are facing large and small businesses could be a great way for companies to evaluate and build relationships with talent.”

Shaw said the Innovation Challenge teams will be evaluated on problem-solving and their ability to present those solutions. After an opening round of competition, the top four teams will move on the finals. 

The second-place finishers will claim $3,000, while $1,500 will go to the third-place team.

“It’s going to be a phenomenal relationship-building opportunity for all parties involved,” Shaw said.

While currently focused on his grad school application to Michigan, Green hopes to form connections that will serve him well on his post-graduate path.

“You never know. There might be a career or an internship opportunity for me down the line,” he said. “ … I’ve put a lot of work in to get where I am, and I know the work is not done yet.”

The S.C. students participating in the challenge are:

  • Mackenzie Brown, junior, management information systems, Claflin Universit
  • Adria Cofield, senior, business management, Benedict College
  • Caleb Green, senior, business administration/management, Claflin University
  • Kenneth Lewis, senior, business administrative management, Benedict College
  • Taneia O’Bannon, senior, business administration/marketing, Benedict College
  • KeAndre Peavy, senior, accounting, Benedict College
  • Betelhem Shefnie, junior, computer science, Benedict College
  • Kiara Williams, senior, accounting, Benedict College

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