Monday, October 27, 2008 9:40 AM
by
Pradeep U.N.
Firenze|China will lead to several world-firsts!
As promised last year - in 2008/2009 we are expanding Firenze to China. This is absolutely exciting for us!
Partnering with the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business which started running an East-West MBA All-Star Case Challenge last year based on Firenze's blue print (Thanks to some great partnership with Prof Baohong Sun from Tepper School of Business) Firenze|China will be run in Beijing in Jan 2009.
It's purpose is to give MBA students an opportunity to meet, compete, collaborate and brainstorm with their peers from around the world, tackle a real-life business problem currently facing Microsoft, and propose solutions to Senior Microsoft Management.
Student teams of 4 individuals will prepare to give presentations on day one. Day two will feature mixed-team presentations that analyze the same case but from a different perspective. The winners of Firenze|China compete for the chance to implement your project idea using a Microsoft budget of $20,000.
This opportunity is absolutely fascinating since this will be a world-first in terms of getting students to work on the implementation of their proposal for a company while still in school .... with a twist, which will be revealed later :).
Another world-first is the sheer breadth and depth of schools being approached to participate in this - as there are over 36 universities (9 from China, 19 from USA, 2 from Korea, 1 from Singapore, 2 from HongKong, 1 from India, 2 from Europe) all coming over to Beijing for the event. Again the world-first events specifically happen in Beijing and not before - and cant be revealed yet :)
While the details for that start coming out, here are some details on the schedule:
Schedule:
November 15: Case sent to schools
December 4 : Phone conversation with relevant Microsoft Executives
December 20: Deadline for School Teams to submit Presentation Materials
Complete version of all materials that might be used in Jan 5 presentations must be submitted, including Powerpoint slides, survey results, video, mock-ups, etc. While use of submitted materials during presentation is not necessary, judges will have access to these materials and might ask questions concerning them during the Q & A portion. Some of these materials might be used by various media covering the event or in promotional / follow-up material.
Monday, January 5-6: Firenze Showdown in China!!!
