From left to right: Dini Amirah Binti Mohd Desa, Hiew Tzy Hwan, Matthew Ong, Chong Zhi Zheng, Loh Nicole. 

A student team from the 188体育网址_188体育在线-【唯一授权网站】@ of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) won the second prize of the Premiere UK-Wide Case Competition 2022, organised by ASEAN-UK Business Forum (AUBF). The team named Blueprint comprised of undergraduate students from the School of Economics Loh Nicole (team leader) and Matthew Ong Shen Wei along with Hiew Tzy Hwan and Dini Amirah Binti Mohd Desa from the Nottingham 188体育网址_188体育在线-【唯一授权网站】@ Business School, as well as post-graduate student Chong Zhi Zheng (alumnus of School of Economics) from the London School of Economics.

The team walked away with a cash prize of GBP 400. They will also receive fast-track opportunities with McKinsey & Company (APAC) and PwC (Malaysia) as well as an invitation to an exclusive high tea networking session at the House of Lords, London with ASEAN ambassadors.

They submitted a preliminary 1500-word research proposal on policy solutions to the problem statement titled “In the midst of a digitally disrupted economy, how can ASEAN youths be best equipped to enter this renewed job markets?” As one of the five teams with the best proposals, they reached the finals. On 20 December 2022, they presented a proposal to answer the final problem statement of “How can you help ASEAN countries and corporations to accelerate energy transition through digital levers?” at the London School of Economics. The panel of judges include Michele Pani (Partner at McKinsey & Co, London), Dr Kanes K. Rajah (Executive Director of Centre for Executive and Professional Development London), Dr Kogila Balakrishnan (Director of Client & Business Development at Warwick Manufacturing Group), and Paul Aron Thomas (Co-Founder of Horízōn, and Co-Founder and CEO of Ziraf).

“The case competition organised as part of the ASEAN-UK Business Forum was a compelling experience! Comprising of teammates from NUBS and Economics (and 1 UNM Economics Alumni) we were pretty diverse and each of us brought a different line of thinking to the table; part of the experience was the many hours spent on coming to a mutually agreed upon idea as well as brainstorming and debating (but being careful enough to avoid groupthink). Due to relatively short turnaround given by the organisers to prepare for the final presentation (~7 days), we spent a huge chunk of time working on our slides in odd places (on the plane, in the car and in the hotel), we also had lots of sleepless nights spent refining our presentation. Nevertheless, we pulled through and managed to combine our ideas into a single coherent presentation on time,” shared by the Blueprint team. 

About ASEAN-UK Business Forum – Premiere UK Wide Case Competition
This competition was jointly organised by ASEAN-UK Business Forum (AUBF), Warwick ASEAN Conference, LSESU ASEAN Society, with McKinsey & Company as the knowledge partner, and supported by Ms Merlene Emerson MBE.

Written by Putri Nurdiana Binti Don @ Abdullah (Year 2, BSc (Hons) Economics and International Economics)