Three students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management won a global business competition hosted by one of China's top business schools in partnership with Tencent's mobile networking platform WeChat in Shanghai on Sunday.

The winning formula: A business plan that helps young users take care of senior family members using WeChat, which in China trumps WhatsApp, Line and most other social media in terms of popularity.

It now boasts 438 million users in over 200 countries. Competing teams were required to integrate it into their solutions.

INNOVATEChina was launched by MBA students from the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in 2008 as a means of promoting innovative solutions for business challenges. This year the competition is running under the name We Win with WeChat.

CEIBS ranked 15th on the Financial Times' global MBA rankings in 2013. Tencent lists among the world's largest Internet companies.

More than 100 teams participated in this year's competition. Six, including three from the US, made it to the final. They were selected based on their plans' relevance to WeChat as well as their creativity and feasibility, said Zhu Liqun, head of WeChat's marketing department.

The winning proposal, WeChat Care, taps perhaps the smallest demographic of social media users - senior citizens. It allows younger family members to track their location and health, send them pocket money, and other functions. It also helps older users to make hospital appointments and reminds them to take their medicine on time.

"A lot of old people live alone. Sometimes they don't pick up the phone to call you because they don't want to bother you," said Connie Cheung, a member of the Sloan team.

"What we tried to convey in our talks was that we actually focused on solving a social problem," said Andrew Radin, one of her teammates.

The six teams in the final were mentored by academics and experts from the digital technology and venture capital sectors. Mentors included Patrick Kelly, COO of Activision Blizzard, Zhu Jianhuan, venture partner of IDG Capital, and Yu Dunde, CEO of the travel platform Tuniu.com. They were also all members of the judges' panel.

Three of the final plans focused on tourism and hospitality.

One of these, conjured up by a team from INSEAD, revolves around a mobile app that helps users exchange currencies as well as their traveling experiences.

Another, from a group of Stanford students, recommends places to go and eat based on users' preferences as collected by WeChat. It is called Jus'Go.

A team from UCLA Anderson designed the third, WePlay, which allows users to customize their hotel room by requesting, for example, softer pillows or a higher temperature. The feature also lets them use their phones as a door key as well as a remote control for appliances in the room.

There seems to be plenty of room in the real world for such schemes. Professor Willy Shih of Harvard Business School said the success of Uber and Airbnb highlights market niches that need to be filled.

"For Uber or Airbnb, or if you look at the taxi apps in Shanghai and Beijing, there was a lot of inefficiency in terms of matching the customers with service providers," said Shih.

Tencent hopes through its collaboration with CEIBS to raise awareness among overseas enterprises and MBA students of the myriad possibilities WeChat offers, said Zhu.

"Their ideas are only half the battle," she said of the finalists. "They still have to conquer the market."

She said WeChat will provide technical support to the finalists to further promote their plans.

lixueqing@chinadaily.com.cn