Students from The University of Manitoba advance to the final of Keyloop’s 2022 Dealer Tech Competition.
Keyloop, the global automotive technology company, announced the individual university winners of the second annual Keyloop Dealer Tech competition. Over 1,000 students from leading universities registered their interest in the competition.
Five students (Leon Stetefeld, Jared Rost, Omar Bileha, Joseffus Santos and Tanvir Ahmed) from The University of Manitoba formed the team ‘EasyCar’. Their idea was to create a search engine to compare and recommend potential new cars for customers by using a matching algorithm.
Leon Stetefeld commented: “We learned about Dealertech through our faculty, and we signed up to further develop our presentation skills and learn more about the auto industry. Overall we learned a great deal about how to identify needs, develop a brand and work together as a team”.
Following several university judging days over the past three weeks, six finalists have been selected from the university winners to progress to the international final, where they will compete to win the £10,000 prize (or local currency equivalent).
The six grand finalists are:
- King’s College London, team: Christian Grinling
- The University of Manitoba, team: EasyCar
- The University of Exeter, team: ExeTerminators
- The University of Bath, team: Tom Christensen
- The University of Warwick, team: The Testroyers
- Munster Technological University, team: REVVV
The Keyloop Dealer Tech competition provides an opportunity for students to team up with their friends, network with industry professionals, gain new skills and win big prizes. The initiative was founded by Keyloop in 2021 to encourage innovation in automotive retail amongst the next generation of car buyers, and to promote the industry as an exciting and dynamic career choice for students.
The 2022 competition was open to teams from leading universities across the UK, Ireland and Canada, and has unearthed some strong STEM and business talent, as demonstrated by the quality of the final presentations.
This year’s competition saw each student team tasked with developing an innovative tech-focused product idea that could make an impact on the automotive retail industry. The 30 successful proposals progressed to the ‘Idea development phase’, during which students built out their proposals into product ideas, with the help of industry experts, learning materials and mentors.
They were then asked to present their ideas to a panel of expert judges at Keyloop. The presentations were done in professional settings and included a demonstration of the product, plus a Q&A to mirror a real-world pitch scenario.
The top-scoring team from each university receives £1,000. Details of all winners can be found below. From all the universities, the six best entries will progress to the grand final, where teams will get the opportunity to present their ideas on 9th March to the full judging panel of Senior Keyloop Leaders and industry experts, where an overall winner will be selected, and receive a further £10,000.
