In today's world, wherever we go or whatever we do, every function demands perfection, experience and credibility. Knowledge now does not limit within the four walls of the classroom anymore and there lies a vast difference between reading through the lines of a book and practically undertaking the academics and turning them into something worthwhile. This is where business competitions come in, giving the young minds a platform to discover and highlight their talents, alongside dealing with pressure and strategies.
About the event
North South University Young Entrepreneurs Society (NSU YES!), the leading business club of North South University, under the School of Business and Economics, are the host of several of the largest business competitions in the country and have been around since 1994. 'Masters of Ideation (MI)' is one of NSU YES!'s strategic business case-solving competitions, stretched out over multiple rounds, requires its participants to strategically analyse the situations provided to them and deal with real-life business ideas and generate solutions most effectively and efficiently possible. This year, in collaboration with Lever Ayush, NSU YES! hosted the sixth season of 'The Battle for Supremacy'. This year marked the most prominent Masters of Ideation, with 719 teams from 30 different academic institutions in the country.
The workshops and seminars
This year, Lever Ayush presents Masters of Ideation 2018 was set in motion, with the workshop, on November 2nd. The workshop was taken by the Brand Manager of Lever Ayush, where he shared few of the fundamental information needed for the participants to fashion their ideas, matching the expectations of this year's cases and jury. The workshop was a medium for the participants to get an idea about business competitions, in general, and ask questions about the ins and outs of the strategies, judging criteria, financial management of MI 2018. The participants were made to be introduced to the products they had to work on during the rounds of the event.
The rounds and grand finale
Following the workshop, the event kick-started with its first online round, where all the teams submitted their solutions, from which sixty teams qualified for the second round. The second round incorporated the participants having to present their ideas in front of the judges from where the judges put forth twenty teams, who route marched their way to the signature round of The Battle for Supremacy, the Ideation Round. The top twenty teams had to go through challenges, followed by some more challenges and then, MI 2018 had its top five finalist teams. One special mention, this year's Masters of Ideation had accommodated few of the brightest minds of the country, giving the organisers and the judges a hard time to pick from.
The grand finale of Lever Ayush presents Masters of Ideation 2018 was hosted in the capital's Radisson Blu, on December 02. The top five finalist teams extended their final presentations in front of the jury on the evening of the finale. After the teams made their final propositions, followed by the question-answer session with the jury, making the grand finale ever more challenging, as promised, the moment made headway to the final hour when the winners were announced. 'Game Changers' from North South University won the title of the sixth season of The Battle for Supremacy, along with prize money of Tk 1,35,000. Team Kaizen from North South University became the first runner-up and the second runner-up was Team Sheldon from Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP), receiving prize money of Tk 85,000 and Tk 65,000 respectively.
This year's Masters of Ideation, in association with Unilever Bangladesh, had given the top three teams the exclusive opportunity of getting fast-tracked to the final round interview of Unilever Leadership Internship Programme.
Words from the champions
The members of Game Changers, the title-winning team, expressed their feelings out of jubilation. Makhjanul Islam Prangon said, "The best part for me was the grand finale when I saw all my efforts paying off in such a grand way. It was not just the trophy that I won, and I am also taking back some helpful lessons from this very competition.", whereas, Adib Zaman stated, "MI 2018 was an incredible experience for us, specially the instant case solving rounds. This whole competition also taught me the various ways of building brand equity. This was such an experience that I would cherish my whole life." "It was a great experience to be a part of a competition this big and challenging of the country, where such worthy teams took part," mentioned Naseeb Tarikh.
Words from the organisers
The operational work for the event had started right after the succession of the executive body member of NSU YES! for the fiscal year 2018-2019, making it the first event of this year's legislative body. Everyone had the sole mission of fashioning this season to be of utmost perfection and grandeur, by breaking previous benchmarks. The President of NSU YES!, Vishal Agarwal, said during the grand finale, "From the time when I was a general member of this club when I organised the first Masters of Ideation, I had a feeling that I wanted to make this event grander, even better and hopefully, after today, when this event successfully ends, I can proudly say that we did it."
The curtains of one the largest business case-solving competitions of the country finally closed, as the sixth season of Masters of Ideation came to an idyllic conclusion.
The writer is a second year student of North South University, she can be reached at [email protected]
