Southampton Business School, Toulouse Business School and Tecnológico de Monterrey Innovation Simulation Competition 2022

Dr Dorrie Chao and Dr David Baxter led another year of a successful cross university innovation simulation competition over 4 days, from 10th – 13th January 2022. This is the second year Southampton Business School (SBS) lead and coordinate this event. In addition to our last year’s partner, Toulouse Business School (TBS), we have another UoS partner joining us, Tecnológico de Monterrey (TEC). Working in 23 teams across more than 3 time zones (the UK, France, and Mexico) 181 final year business school students completed the innovation simulation challenge.

The teams submitted their work at the end entries were shortlisted and reviewed by the facilitators: Benoit Marchal (TBS), Juan Esteban Sánchez Rodríguez (TEC), Dr Dorrie Chao and Dr David Baxter (SBS).

Speaking about the event, Dr Victor Dos Santos Paulino (Toulouse Business School coordinator) said: “It was a pleasure for TBS Education to be involved in the project for the second year. Students have the opportunity to learn hard and soft skills differently. Moreover, they appreciate the learning by doing approach we propose them.”

Juan Esteban Sánchez Rodríguez (Tecnológico de Monterrey coordinator) said: “Our students had an opportunity to measure themselves against some of the best in the world and they found the experience rewarding! This kind of international competitions allow us to improve our students’ experience at university by providing spaces where they can develop leadership, communication and innovation skills in a multi-cultural environment.”

Dr Rob Angell (Faculty of Social Sciences Associate Dean of International) said: " This is a superb example of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). In its second year of running, expanded to a third partner, this is undoubtedly one of the most unique experiences at SBS for students to gain an international and intercultural experience. Many congratulations to all of the students, staff and partners that allowed this to happen. Bravo. "

We are very excited to announce the winners!

SBS students won the second place as well as 2 outstanding performances!

Second place – Team 5 Omega Drones (team sharing a prize of £400).

This was a teamwork between SBS and TBS students.

CEO/CFO/Hardware Engineer: Etien Vechernikov (SBS), CTO/Software Engineer: Molly Holdsworth (SBS), Project Manager: Albert Ros-Florenza (TBS), Marketing Director: Paolo Biasini (TBS)/ Nuria Borras Saunder (TBS)/ Laden Tekeli (SBS).

Team 5’s added: “The innovation competition was really eye-opening for us as a team. It was challenging but the unique experience to work with international students will be unforgettable. The innovative task pushes you out of your comfort zone and enables you to learn new skills with new people. Teamwork is critical for this competition in order to succeed since you have such little time!”

Outstanding Performance - Team 1 DroneHome

This was a teamwork between SBS and TEC students.

CEO: Calum Glendinning (SBS), CFO: Adam Thorne (SBS), CTO: Clarissa Michel Rodriguez Montoya (TEC), Project Manager: Sofia Garcia Real (TEC), Marketing Director: Sam Agnew (SBS)/José Enrique Solís Domínguez (TEC), Software Engineer: Kyle Smith (SBS), Hardware Engineer: Ivan Caro Parrilla (TEC).

Team 1 added: "Our team thoroughly enjoyed working together throughout the Innovation Simulation Challenge as we built relationships and worked towards a common goal. It was an amazing experience being able to work alongside other students from across the globe, whilst solving difficult problems and creating a new product development. We learned a lot about virtual communication, building working relationships and the process by which a new product may be brought to market. This challenge was very engaging and enjoyable and has considerably increased our understanding and awareness of current innovative business challenges."

Outstanding Performance - Team 15 TxS Robotics

This was a teamwork between SBS and TBS students.

CEO/CTO: Daniel Smith (SBS), CFO/CTO:  Luka Gojkovic (SBS), Project Manager: Aya Marfoq (TBS)

Marketing Director:  Laura Wassell (SBS), Software Engineer:  Charles Maupin (TBS), Hardware Engineer:  Pablo BRÈQUE--GUTIÉRREZ (TBS).

Team 15 added: “We loved collaborating with students across the globe and applied theories we have learnt about into an interactive simulation. It was a unique experience that required us to make decisions of high importance at a fast pace! It is also worth giving the Toulouse students from our team an honourable mention for communicating so effectively in English, our French skills definitely need some improving. We already have big celebrations in Toulouse planned at a later date”

There were so many great teams and students that performed outstandingly so, congratulations to all the participants, you all did a great job!