NC State Jenkins MBA Program Hosts 2017 Grand Business Challenge

RALEIGH, N.C. - Nov. 13, 2017 - PRLog -- A team of master of business administration students from Boston University Questrom School of Business won first place and a $16,000 cash prize in the second annual NC State Grand Business Challenge on Cyber Security. They were among nine teams competing from business schools in the United States, Prague and Singapore.

Second place, with an $8,000 cash award, went to Singapore Management University, and third place, with a $4,000 cash award, went to the University of Georgia Terry College of Business.

The event was held November 2 through 4, 2017, at the North Carolina State University, hosted by the NC State Jenkins MBA program  in the Poole College of Management and held at the NC State Park Alumni Center and the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on NC State's Centennial Campus.

The competition was structured to allow teams that advanced to the finals to select an assisting team from among those that did not advance. The NC State Jenkins MBA team assisted the Questrom School of Business's team and received a $4,000 prize. Assisting the second place team was Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, receiving $2,000; and assisting the third place team was Clemson University College of Business, receiving $1,000.

The final prize category was for poster presentations. First place, with a $1,000 prize, went to Florida State University; second place, with a $750 prize, went to Texas Christian University, and third place with a $500 prize went to University of Economics, Prague.

Each team was tasked with providing an information technology solution to a hypothetical cyber security concern faced by businesses working in or with the pharmaceutical industry.

Team presentations and solutions were judged by a panel of 12 professionals working in various IT positions at Booz Allen, Cisco, EY and Merck. The MBA students also had an opportunity to explore career opportunities during an informal career event held as part of the competition.

"This Grand Challenge Competition provides the students a great opportunity to gain perspective of several of the companies that are strategic partners in the drug industry," said Andrew Porter, director of enterprise architecture at Merck. Also participating at the event were representatives from Exostar, NSA and SAS.

"These companies – both those sending judges and those attending to share career insight – all found great value in providing the students fresh insight about the pharmaceutical and allied industries – the challenges and opportunities available to them as they begin exploring career options," Porter said.

Following are the nine 2017 Grand Business Challenge teams and their members.

Boston University Questrom School of Business team members Rajan Agrawal, Vinay Busireddy, Qiaoyi Chen, Siddharth Sood.

Clemson University College of Business team members John Garstka, Jr., Brandon Schuster, Nadine Qubti, and Carissa Robinson.

Florida State University College of Business team members Breanne Gallagher, Matthew James Mueller II, John O'Shaughnessy and Phillip Sims.

Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School team members: Priya Arunchalam, Abhinav Chintakunta, Benjamin Schneider and Matthew Friters.

North Carolina State University Poole College of Management team members: Jared Canady, Samuel Greenstein, Vishnu Kotapalli and William Morisson.

Singapore Management University Lee Kong Chian team members: Sobhith Hariharan, Syed Imdadulla, Piush Kansal and He Maoying.

Texas Christian University Neeley School of Business team members: Rosemary Brennan, Kyle Carter, Michael Janowski and Thu Ngoc.

University of Economics, Prague team members Tomas Cirkovsky, Kristyna Jahnova, Veronika Ptackova and Filip Vencovsky.

University of Georgia Terry College of Business team members: Shub Agrawal, Nicholas Camic, Binh Dao and Daniel Stykitus.

"I congratulate all the teams on the outstanding solutions they presented to the judges," said Beverly Porter, director of the Jenkins Graduate Programs Career Management Center at the NC State University Poole College of Management and coordinator for the NC State Grand Business Challenge.

Read more about the NC State Jenkins MBA program in the North Carolina State: https://mba.ncsu.edu/