We are excited to be kicking off the 2nd year of our Boston University Questrom School of Business $50K Sustainability Case Competition!
Scroll down to understand the process and how to apply
After classes start in September, we will be holding a live information session on September 14th at 5pm (EST), so that different schools across the Northeast can ask any questions
Applications will close on September 16th at 5 pm (EST)
The beauty of this case competition is that students in any degree seeking program are welcome to collaborate with one another on teams
Teams can be comprised of
· Undergraduates working with graduate students
· Graduate students can work with PhD students
· PhD students can even collaborate with a sophomore
No one even must be a business major or minor!
There are a couple of exceptions
Everyone on the team must be a current, degree seeking student
· Alumni should not be on a team working with current students
· All team members must be enrolled at the same school
· To be on a team, you can’t have graduated before the end of December 2023
What is the process?
After the registration portal opens, we will give each school up to 30 submissions
Meaning that if we receive more than 30 applications, we will use a random number generator, and we will select blindly each of the 30 teams
This is to ensure full fairness
Countdown to our fall competition
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Phase 1
In Phase One, we will send the case study to the first set of 20+ teams, and we will ask you over a period of a few days to read the case and offer recommendations – again following complete anonymity
What does this mean?
We ask you to not identify your school at all in the write up and only use your first name and last initial
There will be hired reviewers who have no academic affiliation, and they will not know which school submissions they are reviewing
From the 30 selections per school, they will select one of them
Phase 2
All selected teams will come to Boston University Questrom School of Business on November 18th for Phase Two
You will be in different classrooms
Each of the teams will independently present their recommendations and analysis for the second case that we will issue to you a few weeks in advance
This time the PowerPoint you deliver, unlike a written submission, will be reviewed by judges who will engage in live Q&A
In each of those classrooms the judges will select a single advancing team
Again, we ask that you follow the rules in terms of using the slide template, a minimum number of 30 slides (including implementation and risk assessment), the content on the slide, the font sizes, and most importantly preserving the anonymity by only using your first names and last initial
The judges will select the advancing teams and, then, we might have a little bit of a twist between each stage of the competition:
For example, a new piece of information might be introduced
From the Preliminary Round on the morning of the 18th, advancing teams will successively present that same day in the Quarter Finals and Semi Finals
At this point, the client for the second case study will be coming on campus
Each of the Finalists, after revising/tweaking their presentations one last time, will present their recommendations to the case study’s client – live
The client will select a single winner!
The second twist is you will have an opportunity to watch their judging deliberations. They will be live streamed!
The winner of the 2nd $50K Boston University Questrom School of Business Sustainability Case Competition will receive $50,000 USD, with one requirement:
The winning team will donate 10% of its winnings to a registered and approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose focus is on sustainability
We look forward to receiving your application and hopefully you will be selected to Phase One to compete against other schools in Phase Two
Best of luck to everyone!
If you have questions, please feel free to contact us:
