The Ideas to Innovation (I2I) Challenge─a new initiative offering US$50,000 for the best one-page idea to improve graduate management education—has drawn interest around the world.

Three weeks after GMAC’s Management Education for Tomorrow Fund launched the contest July 13, the registration website had drawn hundreds of early registrants from 55 countries─and only 20 percent were from the US, said Allen Brandt, director of the MET Fund. “We’re heartened by how the contest has resonated with people and is gaining worldwide interest.”

The MET Fund was started in 2008 to formalize and enhance GMAC’s commitment to philanthropic initiatives that benefit business education. Through the I2I Challenge, the MET Fund aims to find the world’s best ideas for improving graduate management education and then fund the top proposals, turning the best ideas into active innovation. Open to individuals and teams of up to five people, the challenge asks simply: What one idea would improve graduate management education?

“We are seeking solutions to improve graduate management education from those who are most closely involved in it: faculty, staff, students, and alumni,” Brandt said. “We recognize that sometimes those who may have terrific ideas are not in the best position to implement them. By separating the idea generation from the implementation, we hope to get the best ideas and then find the best opportunity to turn them into true innovations.”