We've all been there. Your laptop or smartphone goes kablooey. You try to fix it yourself, maybe go online to read the manual. Then you call the tech helpline. And go on hold. A solution seems, frustratingly, unattainable.

That's a problem three Cornell students say IBM's Watson computer can solve, with their business concept "Hello Watson." It would replace humans in call centers with Watson, which would analyze massive amounts of information to help consumer electronics firms answer tech calls faster and with greater accuracy.

The idea won first place for the team -- Dennis Chua '14, chemical and biomolecular engineering; Xiaoxi "Brook" Du '14, computer science; and Joy Chua '13, chemical engineering -- in the Watson Academic Case Competition Oct. 19-21 on campus. Forty-three students participated, from MBA candidates to undergraduates with experience in engineering, marketing and entrepreneurship.

Teams were charged with coming up with a business idea in 48 hours that uses Watson's technology. Three winning ideas were selected by a panel of judges based on the students' ability to articulate the business case including market research, tactical planning and feasibility while showing an understanding of how to harness data for strategic outcomes. "It's analogous to going back 100-plus years, and somebody saying 'We've harnessed this cool thing called electricity. How are we going to use it?'" said judge Rhett Weiss, executive director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute at Cornell's Samuel C. Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Watson first came to national prominence when it beat two expert human players on the TV game show "Jeopardy!" in 2011. It is a cognitive computing system that can answer questions, then learn and become more accurate over time. Cognitive computing systems have the ability to cull through vast amounts of data and arrive at optimal decisions by processing information in ways that mimic the human brain and understand the nuances of natural language.

The first-place team had a solid business case and a good understanding of the technology's potential, said Weiss. "The problem was big, it was clear, we could all relate to it. And the solution, at least at a high level, seemed like a feasible, smart application for Watson technology."

"Watson Helps You Plan Your Next Beach Getaway Faster," the second-place team's concept, would help travelers make better, faster decisions, using Watson's ability to analyze information such as websites that aggregate flight and hotel rates and recommend the best options.

The third-place team's concept was "You're Hired! Big Data Helping HR," an adaptive human capital management model that calls on Watson's ability to quickly comb through data and make informed recommendations to help businesses match open jobs with the best candidates.

The biggest challenge was going up against teams whose members had business training, said Dennis Chua. "As a team of engineers ... we had to constantly and consciously pull away from the technical details and put an emphasis on the business model and marketing schemes."

The experience made Du consider working in industries related to artificial intelligence. "This competition showed me that I can still find opportunities in the industry to pursue things I like," she said.

The competition forced students to look at their concepts from the perspectives of business and technology, said Weiss. And it gave them the experience of collaborating in a pressure-cooker situation, said judge Graeme Bailey, professor of computer science. "Knowing how to delegate and work with a team and exploit each other's skills is actually a really useful thing, and the more people have experience in that, and the more experience they have articulating what they've done, the better," he said.

The other judges were Stephen Gold of IBM and Jeff Hancock, associate professor of communication.

The competition was sponsored by IBM, Delta Sigma and the Association of Computer Science Undergraduates.