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“Concordia University in Canada, and the John Molson School of Business is considered one of the most important universities in North America, attracting students from all over the world. This university takes pride in its international competition for MBA students, which is considered the most important competition of it's kind. Participating in this event are 36 teams representing 14 different countries from 5 continents, as well as over 250 judges from the leaders of the business and management world, who represent important international companies.

Caroline Ribeiro (Organizer): The goal of this competition is to provide our students with an experience where they can meet each other and exchange ideas and experiences, which makes for an excellent learning experience.

Rana Beiruti (Marketing EA): This is the oldest and most prestigious competition of it's kind. This year we managed to collect the largest sum ever in sponsorship money, so we were able to launch new initiatives, one of which is a mobile app.

Another new addition to the competition this year is the participation of an Arab team for the first time in the history of the competition, attending from the American University of Cairo in Egypt.

Dr. Bakr Ibrahim (Associate Dean, John Molson School of Business): I am delighted that for the first time we have a team participating from AUC Egypt. We hope that next year we will have a large number of participants from other universities in the Middle East.

Ahmed Dabbish (AUC Participant): We are the first Egyptian team and Arabic team to participate in this competition. We gained a lot of experience that nobody had warned us about before. But we would be happy to pass it along to any other Egyptian or Arabic team to participate in the future.

Karim Tadros (AUC Participant): We learned how to work under pressure, and how to deal with people from different nationalities. We learned new perspectives and how to think in a new way. We didn't only learn how to grow in different countries, but also how to gain experience from the world.

Teams competed throughout the week and won cases where they solved problems to do with improving the management of global companies. They came up with innovative ideas for investment, as solutions to problems brought to them by international companies and investment firms. They are given almost 2 hours to prepare arguments, and almost 20 minutes to convince a panel of judges of their solution.

Mohammed Shoaib (AUC Participant): We had 3 challenges. The first was to solve the case within 3 hours – to read 25 pages in a language that is not our own, to conduct an analysis and prepare without a computer or internet. Second, we did not have any experience with this competition while there are other schools that have been participating for years. Third, we only prepared for this competition for 2 weeks in advance, while other universities have been preparing for a year. But thankfully we did well and we were able to beat some American and German schools.

Mohammed Ragab (AUC Participant): Based on the feedback that we got and the ideas we got from the judges and our coach, we were able to raise the image of our university and our country at such an important event in Canada.

Judge: For me, I enjoy hearing the student's perspectives and new ideas that come from different cultural backgrounds. As for them, I have extensive experience that they can draw from and learn from.

This year, Concordia University and the John Molson School of Business were able to gain a record amount of funds for the competition, making hundreds of thousands of dollars from Canadian and international companies. This is an indication of the importance of bringing together business men and graduating students.

Kinda Jayoush – MBC – Montreal”