Wikistrat Grand Strategy Competition Participants Successfully “Map a Future Worth Creating"

PRLog (Press Release) - Jul. 21, 2011 - Students and analysts from top ranked international universities and think tanks spent a month using Wikistrat’s innovative model and breakthrough methodology of Collaborative Competition to draft national trajectories, develop policy options and contend with shocks to the international system for the countries they represented.

In the final week of the International Grand Strategy Competition, the competitors encountered their final, and toughest, challenge- stress testing their grand strategies against a series of shocks which take place over 20 years: These included major terror attacks in Saudi Arabia causing the death of hundreds and damaging the flow of oil; the spread of 2.0 Revolutions across Central Asia; major disruptions to search engines, email and other services caused by a series of Internet flaws; and a massive tsunami hitting the central Chinese coast, causing supply chain concerns.

The goal, according to Competition organizers, was to encourage participants to test and improve the resilience of their proposed strategies. “This methodical process enhances the teams' strategic planning and risk management capabilities. Combined with their peers' comments and criticism, teams can exploit the power of "collaborative competition" to explore the full range of strategic options and propose creative alternatives. Competitors were asked to analyze these shocks and map their potential aftershocks, and then evaluate their strategies' resilience to the shocks, suggesting changes that would make their strategies more adaptive to global shifts.”

A team of judges led by former Pentagon strategist Dr. Thomas PM Barnett awarded the top prize to the team from Claremont Graduate University, which played the role of Pakistan. According to Dr. Barnett, “CGU PhD-students demonstrated impressive analytic capabilities and continued to propose creative and provocative ideas throughout the competition, making a collaborative effort and effective use of the unique Wikistrat model.”

The teams of students and analysts from Oxford University, The School of Oriental and African Studies, Cambridge University (CISA) and the Ohio State University rounded out the top 5.  

"The entire competition has been one of the most exciting intellectual exercises for me in a long time," said Roman Muzalevsky, the leader of the team from Yale, when reflecting on his experience over the course of the Competition. "I am certain I have learned more from this experience than the vast majority of classrooms I have ever been in," added Andrew Eccleston, a member of the team from the American Military University.  While the prize was a strong incentive, most participants felt the experience of applying their theoretical knowledge and using Wikistrat’s innovative model was the real reward.

The final product, consisting of hundreds of pages created on the wiki, effectively demonstrates how the Wikistrat model can facilitate the development of novel solutions to the challenges faced by governments and businesses navigating a complex international environment.

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Wikistrat stands at the interface between business and geopolitics, allowing clients to interact with the system to create scenarios, pathways and shocks-to-the-system, and explore them alongside leading strategic thinkers.