In a year defined by disruption, many organizations have had to curtail or severely limit their summer internship programs. The RingTerns at RingCentral not only managed to make the shift to virtual work, but blew leadership away with their innovative entries in this year\u2019s RingTern Disrupt Challenge.<\/p>\n
Every year, RingTerns participate in the Disrupt Challenge – a competition similar to Shark Tank, where groups of \u201centrepreneurs\u201d conceive, test and present ideas to a panel of our leading product experts.<\/p>\n
This summer\u2019s class of 39 RingTerns split up into four groups, each tasked with creating a feature enhancement for our RingCentral Video application. The teams spent 8 weeks concepting, creating mockups, performing market analysis, and searching for ways to effectively demonstrate ROI.<\/p>\n
Due to the pandemic, each team had to gather virtually, but deliver actually. That meant putting together a detailed presentation featuring the following elements:<\/p>\n
Naming\/Explanation:<\/strong> What\u2019s your idea\/product called? What does it do? The teams met. Brainstormed. Debated. Tested. Refined. Debated some more. And on August 6, they delivered their presentations (again, virtually,) to over 300 RingCentral employees led by a panel featuring some of the company\u2019s leading product experts:<\/p>\n William Moxley<\/strong>\u2014Senior Vice President & Chief Product Officer The quality of the thinking, and of the presentations was first-class. From ideas that enhanced our existing products to ideas that reimagined the ways we interact with customers and colleagues, the panelists had their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n So…at this point you\u2019re probably psyched to hear all about the winning idea, right? Heh. Well. This is awkward.<\/p>\n We\u2019d love to tell you about the winning idea, but since it is actually going into production, we\u2019ve got to keep it under wraps for now, which is just eating us up, but rules are rules.<\/p>\n We can, however, tell you it\u2019s really smart, and you\u2019ll see it live really soon. We can also congratulate the winning team: \u201cNew Kids On The Call,\u201d which we will do right now:<\/p>\n Adriana Regolado, Akruti Desai, Caitlin Carroll, Griffin D\u2019Haenens, Hui Yu Chuang, Jacob Baker, Mathilde Berthier, Nash Kathiravan, Riley Chu and Virginia Washburn<\/strong>, take a bow. You crushed it.<\/p>\n Shout-outs are also in order for our other teams – the creativity, hard work and innovation showed through in every single one of your presentations.<\/p>\n SECOND PLACE – \u201cIntern-ally Screaming\u201d The RingTern program is the perfect example of what #workingtogether means\u2014 a chance for people just launching their careers to get real-world experience and deliver real-world impact, together. Just ask team member Akruti Desai. \u201cComing up with a problem and then doing analysis, research and solutions is something I will be able to take with me going forward in my career. It’s applicable not just in my field, but in general, having that mindset helps personally and professionally.\u201d<\/p>\n Thanks to everyone who participated in Disrupt Challenge 2020. We\u2019ll let you know as soon as the product goes live, and we can\u2019t wait for next year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a year defined by disruption, many organizations have had to curtail or severely limit their summer internship programs. The RingTerns at RingCentral not only managed to make the shift to virtual work, but blew leadership away with their innovative entries in this year\u2019s RingTern Disrupt Challenge. Every year, RingTerns participate in the Disrupt Challenge …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":42990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18885],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ringcentral-newsdesk"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nPreview:<\/strong> How does it work?
\nExpected ROI:<\/strong> How does it generate revenue, and how much does it cost to make-or-implement?
\nRationale:<\/strong> How does this idea fit RingCentral\u2019s business model and long-term strategy?
\nGo-To-Market Strategy:<\/strong> What markets are we targeting? Who is the audience? How will our product be delivered? How will we message-and-market it? What\u2019s it going to cost?<\/p>\n
\nJonathan Chong<\/strong>\u2014Associate Vice President, Application development
\nReno Renollet<\/strong>\u2014Senior Director, UCaas Engineering
\nRenny Monaghan<\/strong>\u2014Vice President, Solutions Marketing
\nDavid Theis<\/strong>\u2014Product Manager, (and RingTern Class of 2017 alumni.)<\/p>\n
\nTHIRD PLACE – \u201cTen Plus Jenn\u201d
\nFOURTH PLACE – \u201cThe Brainstormers\u201d<\/p>\n