UQ students make top six in global business school challenge

24 Feb 2015

A team of University of Queensland Master of Business Administration students were selected as one of six finalists in The G20 Global Business Challenge, a competition 140 postgraduate student teams from the world’s leading business schools in November 2014.

Participants responded to major global challenges collaborating with the research and business communities.

The UQ team - Callum Hickey, Matheesha Gunawardana, Asma Qureshi and Ainnatul Adawiyyah - pitched ‘Rephytomed’, a natural engineering process which takes metal out of mining waste water and recycles it back into the mining and refining process.

“The idea is to harmonise environmentally-friendly processing with the mining company’s goal,” said UQ participant Callum Hickey.

This conceptual business solution scored the team a place in the finals alongside teams from leading universities around the world including The Memorial University of Newfoundland Canada, The University of Warsaw, Griffith University, University of Pennsylvania, and The University of Nottingham. 

The final challenge required teams to tailor their business solution to a particular country, and present it to a panel of industry leaders after a 36-hour lock in days before the 2014 G20 Summit was staged in Brisbane.

The challenge was ultimately won The Memorial University of Newfoundland and Mr Hickey said the UQ team was honoured to have made it to the top six.

“Professionally I made a lot of new international contacts and gained insight into new technologies on the cutting edge,” he said.

“The competition perfectly harmonised and engaged my chemical engineering and business backgrounds. The competition also played to my love of innovation.” 

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