Beijing, January 6, 2009 – Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business and Microsoft Corp. announced the winners of the inaugural Firenze| China East-West MBA All-Star Case Challenge. The winning team which consisted of 8 students each from different graduate business schools was awarded a prize of US$20,000 cash. In addition, as the judges were tremendously impressed with the final two teams' performances, both teams will also be given a budget of US$10,000 each to help implement their winning mobile solutions.

The winning team presented their campaign titled "Yes, I Will" to highlight how young people worldwide can make a difference by voting and committing their support for global issues such as women's rights, education for all, and environmental sustainability via mobile applications created on popular social networking sites. This is also a cost effective and quick way to reach out to their extended group of family and friends to help them achieve the case study target of 5 million mobile users.

 Leveraging mobile solutions to address real-world case scenarios

 Sixteen teams representing twelve elite universities from China, Singapore, South Korea and the USA participated in this competition, organized jointly by Microsoft and Cheung Kong GSB. In the "Compete" phase of the competition, each team had six weeks to conceptualize an innovative mobile solution/service for students and create an out-of-the-box marketing campaign that would generate a 20 per cent take up rate among the target audience.

 To simulate real-world conditions, and showcase business decision making in the current economic downturn, participants were informed of two new criteria part-way through their planning cycles: firstly, their solution/service and supporting marketing campaign needed to deliver concrete, measureable value to the business by promoting awareness of and participation among students in either the Imagine Cup or DreamSpark programs from Microsoft. The Imagine Cup encourages young people to apply their imagination, passion and creativity to conceptualize technology innovations that can make a difference in the world today. The DreamSpark student program makes available a broad range of development and design software, at no charge, to more than 35 million college students around the world. In addition, participants were informed of "strict budget constraints" and had to ensure their campaign could be implemented within US$20,000.

 "We wanted to leverage the current economic downturn to give participants a taste of some of the scenarios they could encounter in the real world – budget cuts, changes in project parameters, increased expectations on return to investment and help the students see that innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat," said Pradeep U.N., Emerging Markets Strategy Manager, Microsoft Services and Director for the Microsoft Firenze program. "Overall, I was impressed by the quality of the ideas and the caliber of the students to recognize and overcome these challenges, and make their proposals a business reality."

 After presenting to an international panel of industry luminaries, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business team and Tsinghua University Team 1 were selected as winners of the "Compete" phase.

 Cross-cultural collaboration raises the bar in creativity and innovation

 In the "Collaborate" phase, participants from the sixteen teams were shuffled to form eight mixed teams. These new global teams were then given 24 hours to create a new solution that addressed the same case scenario and present a compelling proposition to the judges. Not only did participants have to adapt to and collaborate with new team members from around the world, but they also had to design solutions that would be scalable to reach up to five million students globally. In addition, they also had to face a new budget reduction to US$10,000.

 "The idea behind Firenze|China was to provide students from top MBA programs an opportunity to collaborate across borders and stretch them with a case competition that is several levels tougher, ambiguous and more difficult than any other," said Baohong Sun, Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing, Cheung Kong GSB. "Participants were put through a rigorous process that resulted in innovation and creativity; this is precisely what happens when good teamwork and leadership is cultivated. Not only does this help them to develop a global mindset, but also competencies that would help them contribute positively to their future employers."

 Despite working under intense time pressures, participants were able to impress the judges with their well thought-out campaigns and compelling presentations. Eventually, the "Yes I will" campaign was chosen as the overall winner because of their strategic vision, comprehensive presentation and ability to skillfully tackle the judges questions.

 "Mobility has changed the way people live, interact and communicate. Today, people use mobile phones to stay connected with loved ones, and keep up with the latest happenings – whether via instant messaging, blogs, or the Internet. Smart phones will increasingly become the device of choice for many people, and Microsoft will continue to work with industry partners to create useful devices and inspirational applications that suit different work styles and lifestyles," said Benjamin Tan, Business Group Director, Microsoft Mobile Communications Business China.