Student Challenge Class of 2019

The Challenge

The NRF Foundation collaborated with STORY and KPMG for the 2019 Student Challenge Competition. 25 teams from NRF member schools selected one of the following companies to focus on: The Home Depot, IBM, or Kroger. They were tasked with finding two to four of the smartest, most creative people they knew to create a 30-page pitch presentation and 90-second pitch video to convince the Chief Marketing Officer of The Home Depot, IBM, or Kroger to select their STORY.

Each team was assigned a KPMG mentor; after an intense round of judging, 7 teams advanced to the semi-finals, which include Q+A calls with a panel of retail executives. Three teams will move on to the finals where they will present live to retail executives in New York as part of the NRF Foundation Student Program at NRF 2019: Retail's Big Show.

The Scholarships

Each student on the top team will receive $5,000 scholarship; students on the runner-up team will each receive a $2,500 scholarship, and third place team members will each receive a $1,500 scholarship. The top team will be named during the NRF Foundation Gala on Sunday, January 13, in New York. 

Participating schools

As each member university could sponsor two teams, 22 teams from 19 schools participated this year. The creativity and hard work demonstrated by all of the teams made it extremely difficult to select only 7 semi-finalists. Congratulations to all of the teams on their creativity in bringing their ideas for The Home Depot, IBM, or Kroger to life: 

Columbia College Chicago, Drexel University, Fashion Institute of Technology, Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Florida State University, Georgia Southern University, Indiana University, Iowa State University, LIM College, Marist College, Meredith College, Texas Tech University, University of Georgia, University of Iowa, University of Kentucky, University of North Texas, University of Tennessee - Knoxville, and University of Wisconsin-Madison.