Four students from the University of Connecticut School of Business competed in the Travelers IT Case Competition on Friday, November 4th in Hartford. Maxwell Skalski, Joel Thomas, TJ Hannon,  and Christopher Connelly were chosen to participate by UConn’s sponsor in the competition, Professor Jon Moore.

Each school participating in the competition was allowed to enter one team, composed of four members chosen by the school’s sponsor. The competition was open to students that were sophomores or juniors majoring or minoring in a field relating to information technology. Hannon represented the Management Information Systems (MIS) major for UConn in the competition. The other students’ majors varied throughout the School of Business.

Six teams competed against each other by providing solutions to an IT-based business case and presenting to a judging panel of Travelers’ senior management.

The case involved updating and improving CAT van technology at Travelers. CAT vans are custom-made RVs that are used as operational mobile claim offices for catastrophe response. This technology is important to the company because they allow Travelers to be there for their clients as soon as possible when they most need assistance.

The case problem was sent out to the teams on October 12th, three weeks before the competition itself. At the competition, each team had 20 minutes to present a proposed solution to the case and ten minutes following for questions.

Not only was the case competition an opportunity for students to gain experience in solving real world IT problems, but it acted as a way for students to learn about job and internship opportunities at Travelers, and networking with potential future employers.

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