On Oct. 25 -27 the TRU MBA team competed against four other teams at the UBC Sauder School of Business. The MBA Games are a friendly competition among universities, in which MBA students compete in a wide variety of areas.
The theme for this year’s competition was Industry 4.0 – The Future for Business, the purpose of which was to inspire participants to think about the challenges businesses and societies face with the exponential growth of technology, as well as their role in shaping a better future for the world.
The games test the teams physically and mentally. TRU placed first in the Marketing Case, Soccer, and Team Dance competitions. They came second in Video Making and Fundraising and received a third-place finish in the Amazing MBA Race and the Non-profit Case competition. Overall scores from all of the competitions secured them a first-place spot over UBC Sauder School of business, University of Victoria, SFU Beedie School of Business and Vancouver Island University.
The TRU team fconsisted of captain Akhil Prabhu and players Akshaya Shetty, Alanna Cairns, Amulya Chandra, Annah Nganga, Ayush Sharma, Azmat Hussain, Belinda Katumba, Gandharav Chopra, Innocent Oborevwori, Jaspreet Singh, Margaret Munemwa, Marriappan Vasudevan, Mika Nguyen, Mullaivanathan Chinnaswamy, Pankaj Sharma, Natasha Bhagwat, Nikhil Chorat, Sandeep Dahiya, Shaun Gonsalves, Simar Sachdeva, Sneha Sharma, Walid Benmokhtar and Viona D’souza.
“The team started practicing in July 2019,” Prabhu said. “We put in ridiculous amounts of hours into preparation for case studies, sports and dance events. We aimed at becoming the best team by spending a lot of time together to develop a bond with each and every team member.”
The team met every Friday for academics and on Sundays for sports and dance practice, while continuing their studies. Faculty members Warveni Jap and Nancy Southin attended the sessions to provide the team with feedback and to help them improve their case study presentations.
RBC and RBC Dominion Securities Kamloops sponsored the team and supported them in their fundraising efforts for “Open Science Network,” which was the charity partner of the BC MBA Games 2019.
In addition to placing first overall, the team took home the Most Spirited Award and the Player of the Games Award, which was awarded to team member Chopra.
The National MBA games are in Hamilton, Ont., Jan. 3-5, 2020. The team hasn’t yet decided if they will attend.
