Signatory Spotlight: Yorkville University, Canada

Yorkville University's Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) – Project Management program doesn't let students graduate on theory alone. Its capstone experience puts them in front of a real business problem, with a real deadline, and asks them to deliver something that actually works – and actually matters.

That approach was on full display at the 2026 Ontario Project Management Competition (OPMC), where Yorkville's Pink Pathway team took first place with PinkPulse AI, an AI-powered companion connecting breast cancer survivors with trusted support resources. The team included BBA students Rasagna Voora, Mainil Thakkar, Amir Masoud Shahsavari, and Muzammil Mohammed, mentored by Professor Iram Tanvir.

"From ideation to execution, this journey pushed us to apply real-world project management principles – balancing scope, time, cost, risk, and ethics – with a tight 65-day timeline," said Thakkar. What the team delivered was more than a winning idea, but applied project management in action. Over 65 days, they moved from a signed project charter to a live AI handover, using WBS, Gantt, RACI, Risk Register, and Change Log to keep scope, time, and cost under control. Agile sprints, tracked KPIs, managed and engaged stakeholders enabled them to deliver a working product on budget.

For the team, the win built directly on a prior failure: they'd competed at the 2025 OPMC without placing. "Last year, we didn't walk away with a win, but that experience was a vital part of our journey," said Voora. "It taught us that mistakes are mentors." In the course Rescuing Failed Projects, students learn that setbacks are data rather than defeats. Retrospect, reflections and in-depth analysis are what separates teams from repeating mistakes and improving. The Pink Pathway team applied exactly that mindset, treating their 2025 loss as a case study for 2026.

That cycle – of applied learning, setback, and iteration – is core to how Yorkville designs the program.

Dr. Oluchi Oti, Dean of Business at Yorkville's Ontario campus, said the achievement reflects the strength of the curriculum itself. "This accomplishment is a testament to their dedication, capability, and ability to apply project management principles in a highly competitive, real-world environment contributing to a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal," she said.

"What makes this program work is that we don't hand students a settled problem with a known answer – we put them in front of something unresolved and ask them to bring structure to it,” added Dr. Eileen De Courcy, Provost of Yorkville University. “Every year, we look at how that experience landed and refine it: what problems we surface, what mentorship looks like, how we prepare students to fail productively before they succeed. Pink Pathway's win is a good outcome, but the real story is a curriculum that keeps getting sharper at producing outcomes like it.”

Yorkville also fielded a second finalist team, NABDT Consulting Collective, underscoring the program's broader capacity to prepare multiple student teams for this level of competition in the same year.

Through applied learning experiences like this, Yorkville advances several UN Sustainable Development Goals, including Good Health and Well-Being (SDG 3), Quality Education (SDG 4), and Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17). These goals are embedded into applied coursework as part of Yorkville's commitment as a PRME Signatory Member – turning responsible management education from a concept into something students practice.

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