McGill University Wins Fourth Annual Innovation Challenge(R) Competition.

McGill's School of Management is Crowned 'Most Innovative MBA Team in the World' in Idea Crossing's Premier Crowdcasting Competition for Innovation at Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia

LOS ANGELES & CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- A team from the Desautels School of Business at McGill University, Montreal, has captured the title of "Most Innovative MBA Team in the World" at the recently concluded 2006 Innovation Challenge[R] competition at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Teams from the Kenan-Flagler School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and MIT's Sloan School of Management finished second and third respectively.

This year's competition attracted more than 440 teams from 88 colleges and universities, from more than 15 countries. The 2006 Innovation Challenge[R] competition, the world's oldest and largest "crowdcasting" innovation competition was sponsored this year by Hilton Hotels, DaimlerChrysler, Whirlpool Corporation, OPEN from American Express, General Electric Money, and M&M's Chocolate Candies.

The McGill team, which finished 15th in the 2005 competition of 321 teams from 83 universities in 18 countries, put together two winning programs for Hilton Hotels and DaimlerChrysler at the final round on November 17 and 18th. The top 10 finalist teams were asked to help DaimlerChrysler connect with Baby Boomers and help Hilton Hotels grow through partnerships. The McGill team consists of Heather Powers, Jonathan Powers, Luc Tran, Stavros Tsokonas, and Kanhaiya Sinha. A panel of judges from sponsors, industry and academia, selected the McGill team for their consistently innovative proposals and will receive a $20,000 cash prize.

A video announcement of the award, which was presented last weekend, can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYrzrUgHOk.

The competition was created and is managed by Idea Crossing, Inc., Los Angeles, the organizer of innovative crowdcasting idea competitions in public and private forums.

"We are delighted by the continued growth of this competition and the incredible number of exceptional and truly innovative ideas that have emerged from this event," said Anil Rathi, CEO and president, Idea Crossing, Inc. "The Innovation Challenge is now firmly established as the world's premier crowdcasting competition for business innovation, attracting industry leading companies seeking the best new ideas from the world's brightest graduate students. The quality, originality and relevance of the ideas presented by these teams demonstrate the true potential of crowdcasting as a tool for innovation."

Crowdcasting is a relatively new concept fostered by Idea Crossing, Inc. Crowdcasting is the intersection of broadcasting and crowdsourcing which uses a combination of push and pull strategies to first engage an audience to build a network of participants. The network's intellect is then harnessed for new insights and concepts which can include new product and service ideas, new branding messages, or even scientific breakthroughs. These insights are extracted from participants' submissions. To be most effective, crowdcasting usually takes the form of a competitive event with a compelling prize.

Idea Crossing provides services that enable public and private idea competitions such as the Innovation Challenge to serve as a forum for tapping into the creative imaginations of employees, consumers, external technical, design and other expert thinkers who can add to an organization's bottom line quickly and efficiently.

Idea Crossing's clients include DaimlerChrysler, Hilton Hotels, IBM, American Express, Chiquita, General Electric, Whirlpool, Sunbeam, Sprint, M&M's Chocolate Candies, and the United States Postal Service.

For a summary of this year's 2006 Innovation Challenge[R] competition or to become a sponsor in 2007, go to http://www.innovationchallenge.com/.

About Idea Crossing, Inc.

Based in Los Angeles, Idea Crossing is currently helping corporations capture fresh ideas from customers, virtual teams, salespeople, suppliers, citizens and community members through crowdcasting programs. Idea Crossing's automated crowdcasting system and competition processes effectively streamline the management of large-scale competitions such as the Innovation Challenge. By launching a customized idea competition, companies can quickly build communities of passionate consumers via crowdcasting that derive new ways of thinking and innovative solutions in a changing business environment. Innovation Challenge is a registered service mark of Idea Crossing, Inc.

For more information on Idea Crossing, go to www.ideacrossing.com.

Innovation Challenge is a registered service mark of Idea Crossing, Inc.; all other company, organization and product names are trademarks of their respective holders.