Today I want to share with you another great experience my colleague Jeannette Weisschuh and I had, attending the HP Global Business Challenge, a student initiative by Junior Achievement worldwide.

This international business competition invites student teams between the age of 18 – 20 to participate in an online simulation over a number of weeks. As part of the simulation, each week they need to make a series of budgeting decisions typically affecting a hypothetical business during a two and one-half year period, including capital investment, research and development, pricing structure, marketing and production level.

The final round of the competition was held live at our HP office in Prague last week. Student teams from Argentina, Azerbaijan, Canada, China, Lithuania and Russia came to Prague to compete in this final challenge. The 16 students from these teams had excelled in the preliminary rounds in which more than 1,470 students on 374 teams from 16 nations participated during Spring.

My colleague Jana Figallova from the Czech HP office who worked closely with JA-YE in Prague to organize this event, said she felt that this competition is an excellent way for students to prepare for working life in a market economy. The students who were participating in this competition were very aware of the potential opportunities for the finalists and because of that we could all see their real nervousness. Jana mentioned how the students worked very hard for several months to be in this final and for most of them it was an absolutely new experience, not only to take part in the competition but also to travel abroad to the Czech Republic.

The contest is sponsored by HP and organized by Junior Achievement (JA) Worldwide in collaboration with the regional and local Philanthropy Team. The students compete against each other by playing an online simulation program called JA Titan™. Students act as CEOs and CFOs and have to make critical business decisions to compete. The interesting thing is that JA Titan is set in the future - the year 2030 – a time when those students could possibly find themselves in real, not just virtual, CEO and CFO roles.

I think this competition is a great opportunity for students to get some first hand experience about the life as a CEO, and lets them put into practice the entrepreneurial skills they have learned.

On Wednesday JA staged another competition at HP’s offices – the so-called friendly competition. JA Board Members and invited guests from the business world were pairing up with the students to go through the business and financial challenges they had faced the day before in the final of the student competition.

Being a business person myself and having attended the ‘friendly’ competition, I can safely say this business simulation is very complex and I believe that even some senior management in real life may find it challenging to successfully complete the tasks in this simulation.

The other aspect I really enjoyed is that the HP Global Business Challenge also gives students a unique opportunity to meet their counterparts from around the globe, and helps prepare them to work in the global economy. This is very relevant looking at our own business networks around the globe.

Lastly, I of course would like to announce the winners. The Azerbaijan Team won and has been awarded the $3,000 first place prize in the 12th annual HP Global Business Challenge.

Daniela Opp, Manager, Social Investments and Economic Development, HP Europe, the Middle East and Africa