Online Competition Background

For the second year in a row, Untap powered the annual 24-hour International Case Competition (ICC). It is an online competition for students that is organized by The AUC School of Business Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), El-Khazindar Business Research and Case Center (KCC), and Business Association (BA), a student-led organization.

ICC is an innovation challenge that aims at promoting cultural fluency among students and introducing them to the multifaceted challenges that startups face, especially in developing countries. Every year ICC focuses on a startup in a specific sector in the Middle East and students from all over the world are invited to compete in solving a challenging business case.

Purpose

Our customer, the AUC, had these goals identified for the competition:

  • Help students from different majors organize their thinking around an integrative planning framework while sprinting out innovative and constructive solutions.
  • Provide incentives for students to apply their best learning practices to a real business case in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially after the pandemic.
  • Help rising entrepreneurial ventures solve their challenges unconventionally; while supporting their journeys.
  • Promote cultural exchange between the different teams and help to improve communication skills between the students.
  • Assist students with building an effective network with employers, moving their school-based knowledge to the labor market.

Challenge

Before using Untap platform, ICC depended on using Google forms for registrations among other conventional tools for other phases in the program. Such decentralization in the process made it very challenging for both the organizers and the participants to have a smooth experience. 

Solution

With Untap, literally, everything related to the program from A to Z is handled in one place easily. The platform provided the organizers with an inclusive experience including a landing page design, a submission form with conditional logic, file uploads, a seamless judging and scoring experience, automated email notifications, round analytics, live chat, and more.

Untap team provided an ongoing sanity check on all aspects and phases of the competitions. They were directly involved and on top of things with program management and promptly and efficiently handled any rising issues and urgent requests.

The customer was satisfied with the platform and the drastic upgrade to the ICC program experience that they decided to rely on Untap for future programs. Indeed, Untap powered several programs for the AUC, but for the scope of this case study, we will focus on the two rounds of ICC that Untap powered.

Program

ICC is a 24-hour online competition where teams of 2-5 undergraduate students have to solve a case in a specific number of hours and present their solution to a panel of judges, who evaluate the presentations, provide feedback and select one winner.

One day before the case is announced, the participating teams are boarded on the platform, introduced to the logistics, and provided with an orientation along with resources, videos, and tips.  On the next day, the case is available on the platform together with a direct message from the founders of the startup in question.

For ICC 21, the case of Schaduf was selected and for ICC 22, Paymob was the selected case. They were both developed in an academic framework to crack their approach and best practices to deal with the current challenges.

Results

ICC 21

  • 55 team submissions 
  • Shortlisted/Runner-ups: 8 (from Colombia, Thailand, India, UAE,  Egypt,  and Morocco)
  • Winner: UTB Dream team from Tecnologica de Boliva University in Colombia
  • Monetary Prize: $1000

ICC 22

  • 105 team submissions
  • Shortlisted/Runner-ups: 8 (from The Philippines, Egypt, France, Bangladesh, and UAE)
  • Winner: Bacon and Eggs – The Philippines
  • Monetary Prize: $2000

Impact

We believe that our customer’s goals for the program were achieved in both years. The whole process was managed online on Untap platform and in a very short time, hundreds of students were exposed to the entrepreneurial ecosystem and participated in an engaging and educational program where they explored and developed their skills.

If you are looking to run your own student competition to identify talent and get fresh ideas, you can book a free consultation with our experts to navigate your needs and come up together with the best plan for you!