For the second year in a row, a team of Carnegie Mellon students claimed first prize in the university division of the Shell Enterprise Challenge. Another Carnegie Mellon team earned second place, with the top two teams beating more than 700 students from nine universities in Qatar.
Launched in 2012 by Qatar Shell and the Bedaya Center for Entrepreneurship and Career Development, Enterprise Challenge is a business simulation competition that encourages entrepreneurship among young people. University and high school students compete in separate tiers, where they are judged on the economic, environmental and social performance of their companies.
This year’s competition kicked off in September, with teams of five students controlling a company over a three-year simulation while attending workshops and mentoring sessions from professional experts. The winners were announced at a gala dinner on November 16, which marked the beginning of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Carnegie Mellon’s “Jockeys” took first place by earning a virtual profit of QR 47.79m. The team comprised business administration students Saad Ahmed, Hassaan Ijaz, Muhammad Suhaib and Taimoor Zahid and computer science student Zeeshan Hanif. The second place went the “Analysts,” comprising business administration students Razan Abunaba, Fazail Ahmed, Wadha Al-Khori, Farha Khan, and Osama Qureshi, who gained a profit of QR 47.75m. Third place went to a team from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
George White, distinguished career professor of entrepreneurship, said the teams’ success highlighted the quantitative nature of the Carnegie Mellon’s business administration program.
“The reason our students won first and second places is because of the heavy emphasis CMU places on math skills as well as business functions. Carnegie Mellon students were able to discover what parameters worked by applying better business analytics techniques,” he said.
White said the competition, which brought together hundreds of students and senior business managers, created an environment for the innovative thinking that will be required for Qatar’s 2030 vision of a knowledge-based economy.
“The competition also highlights our students and their skills to commercial businesses, which ultimately helps both students and businesses,” he added.
