2019 AUCA and AlmaU Business Case Competition

Saturday, April 20^th 2019 – was an extremely memorable day when AUCA and AlmaU hosted the first of its kind Central Asia Friendship Business Case Competition – Crack-it.

Participants – Over 80 students from two top international universities (Almaty Management University and American University of Central Asia) gathered together and formed 15 mixed teams. Students were pre-selected on merit based assumptions. In this way, the palmary of academic success met up and mixed in order to form both friendly and truly competitive environments.

April 20^th, 2019, AlmaU Atrium, general photo with all participants

Objectives – The objectives of the competition were to introduce the practical applications of the core principles that define business and entrepreneurship as a critical function of management to students, and encourage further contributions to their professional development and knowledge spillover.

The Case – the case study was released to all participants via email during the competition day by 11:00 AM. Each team of students’ student had time until 14:00 PM to submit by email, a PPT version of their analysis. After the submission was concluded, students were invited to present their analysis in front of two judges’ panel in parallel. Presentations lasted from 14:30 till 17:30 PM. Each competing teams’ submissions were judged based on five dimensions including: the presentation style, professionalism, knowledge of the case, analysis, strategic recommendations and creativity.

April 20^th, 2019, AlmaU Incubator, general photo with students solving the case

April 20^th, 2019, AlmaU A400r, general photo with students solving the case

Judging – Judges’ panels were represented by highly ranked professional from the industry (EY, KPMG) as well as professors from academia.

Finals – As teams were extremely competitive, judging appeared to be even tougher. Finally the panels announced their results and Two First Prizes were awarded due to an even distribution of the accumulated point between the first runners up teams. Subsequently, prize two and three were followed by second and third runner up teams.

April 20^th, 2019, AlmaU Atrium, general photo with students presenting their solutions

Awards – First place award: students were granted an official invitation to BIG Ideas Camp that will take place in August 2019 in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan with all the lodging and participation cost included. Second place award: Students were offered awards and sets of books on Business and Entrepreneurship related topics. Third place award: Students were offered memorable awards. Al other participants were awarded merit certificates.

April 20^th, 2019, AlmaU Atrium, general photo with students and one of the judges

Outcomes – Besides being an extremely popular and impact of event in terms of knowledge accumulation and sharing it was also a great possibility to network and establish further cooperation frameworks between and among students. Being a novel and unique setting of its kind, both universities are hoping this event to become a corner stone of their further bilateral cooperation.

April 20^th, 2019, AlmaU Atrium, general photo with participants at the closing ceremony

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity