Monday, May 07, 2007

Week 2 Trinity & Moot Corp NASDAQ Challenge Winners!

Texas is incredible! I am now back in sunny Oxford having returned this morning from the global Moot Corp business plan competition held at the McComb School of business at the University of Texas at Austin. It was an amazing experience and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. Whilst we did not win the overall competition, we were the run-away winners of our division (the NASDAQ challenge) and so come home with a nice certificate, an even nicer cheque (each) and big smiles. Oh, and we walked away with the prestigious (yet unofficial) ‘award for the best celebration following winning’. We are very proud!

During our time there we managed to mingle with some people from other universities. Whilst many of them were taking it very (and I mean VERY) seriously, we did meet some kindred spirits who were just happy to be there (and who joined us in our nightly exploration of 6th Street in Austin). So Tom and Angie from Carnegie Mellon school of business (Tepper) I hope that you made it back safely.

The competition ran from Wednesday until Saturday evening with various rounds of presentations for the different categories. I must admit the organisers at McComb really did a great job of looking after us (from regular (free) bus services through to complementary alcohol…which is always nice!). The campus of the school is absolutely huge....although I realised that everything is big in Texas! It really was great trip.
The Moot Corp NASDAQ Challenge winning team
Tom and Angie from Carnegie Mellon joining us for a photo sessionOxford was definitely here (Esther)I couldn't resist taking a picture of thisWith Tammasat (Thailand) and their 'Power Prawns' business (don't ask!)The boys in Coyote Ugly (on 6th Street)Pete's dueling piano bar on 6th Street
Prior to going to Texas there were a couple of other activities:

Macquarie Bank presentation
This was a presentation from Macquarie designed to make us apply for their summer consulting project. Basically, part of our degree is the completing of a two-month consulting project at a company (there are options for people to do electives instead, but in the main people choose to do a project). On Monday it was Macquarie’s turn to tell us about what they wanted and thus invite us to make teams and apply for the project. My team is now set and we will now prepare our ‘pitch’.

Kevin Baughan
During our Media Strategies for a Networked World lecture this week, Kevin Baughan, Head of Technical Strategy, from Virgin Media came in to talk about the change in his industry (which is made up of fixed line phones, mobile phones, cable TV and broadband internet). There were various questions from the audience but the ones that I was interested in was Kevin’s opinion on whether community wifi or wmax would eventually replace the necessity for consumers to use standard mobile phones. He didn’t seem worried about it at all.

May Day
On Tuesday we all awoke at 4.30 so as to attend the May Day celebration in Magdalen college. Kitty (a Magdalen member) kindly sneaked us into the quad so that we could get the perfect view of the choir singing madrigals from the top of the tower.
All of us gathering in Magdalen College
The tower from which madrigals are sung
This really was an incredible week.

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