(L-R) Dr Eziaku Rasheed, Jingyi Chi, Megan Chen and Timothy Lan made up the winning 'Team Wonders'.
A team from Massey’s School of Built Environment (SBE) have won the eighth-annual Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) Global Student Challenge.
The Auckland-based ‘Team Wonders’, made up of Megan Chen, Timothy Lan, Jingyi Chi and led by Dr Eziaku Rasheed, faced a fiercely competitive international field of more than 35 teams. Megan, Timothy and Jingyi are fourth-year Bachelor of Construction Students and Dr Rasheed is a senior lecturer in building technology.
The Global Student Challenge, which is open to full time students, is a test of construction industry know-how, taking place in stages over a number of months. The competition provides a realistic simulation where teams, made up of three or four people, act as a Board of Directors running their own company.
Teams from universities all over the world entered the 2021 competition, and the six teams scoring the most in the early stages are invited to the finals, which was a virtual event this year.
The winning team receives £2,000 in prize money.
The 2021 champions trophy
Dr Rasheed says she is honoured to have mentored the team in their journey through the competition. "This achievement is a testament to the students' dedication and teamwork, and the collective effort of SBE towards equipping our students for the industry."
President of CIOB, Mike Foy, says the challenge is not for the faint hearted. “Our competition pushes the competitors’ strategic, financial and management skills to the limit. As students, they will now have a greater sense of what it’s like to work in a construction company making high-level decisions. I have no doubt that all our finalists will be able to reach that level when they leave university.”
The other finalists were:
- Harsa Bayanaka – University of Indonesia
- CQUNB – CHONGQING UNIVERSITY
- Greenwich Construction – University of Greenwich
- Eco Advance – Taylor's University
- Welly Construction – Wellington Institute of Technology
Entry for the 2022 challenge will open later this year. More information about the challenge is available here.