A team of four MBA On-Demand students and a professor from Thunderbird are competing in the online event of the 2012 Hult Global Case Challenge, an international business competition with a $1 million grant as a prize. The theme of this year’s case challenge is to look at ways in which business can impact global poverty in three different areas or “tracks” – Housing, Education or Energy. The on-line Thunderbird team will compete in the Energy Track.
The team’s members are Brianna Lam MBA ’12, Wesley Herche MBA ’12, KC Bashant MBA ’12 and Kristen Turra MBA ’12. They are joined by Professor Robert Hisrich, Garvin Professor of Global Entrepreneurship and Director, Walker Center for Global Entrepreneurship as special advisor. All five team members live in different cities spanning a range of 11 time zones . . . something that makes the team truly global and has added to both the challenge and richness of the process.
On February 25th, Energy Track teams release video submissions which respond to the Solar Aid case study on how to better market solar lighting in rural Africa. A total of ten teams per track will advance to the second round of the competition, as determined by public voting. The Thunderbird team’s video must be in the top ten, as measured by electronic votes on Facebook and the Hult Global Case Challenge site, in order to advance to the second round of private voting. Public voting is open from February 25th through March 9th. One winner from each of the three tracks will proceed to the final round in New York City in late April.
The winners of the Energy Track online event will join the winners of five regional rounds and head to New York to present their proposals before President Clinton. The team that wins in the final will be awarded a $1 million grant to implement their solution.
We wish the On-Demand team the best of luck as well as the Thunderbird team that is competing in the Housing track, in the regional San Francisco event that is not part of public voting. Please visit the link below to watch the video and vote for the team!