Beedie-hosted CaseIT competition draws global class

by Joanne Leung

Some of the world’s most prestigious business schools met in Vancouver for CaseIT 2012, an annual international undergraduate case competition with a strong MIS focus designed to find the best and brightest in strategic IT case analysis.

Hosted annually by Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, CaseIT is an entirely student-organized event in which 16 university teams compete in a 24-hour case deliberation.

The winners of this year’s CaseIT competition were:

1st Place: Kwantlen Polytechnic University
2nd Place: National University of Singapore
3rd Place: Kelley School of Business (Indiana University)

Some other universities that competed in CaseIT were the University of British Columbia, Queen’s University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Sydney, and the American University of Beirut.

Since its inception, CaseIT has given students from around the world the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge that they obtained in the classroom to real-life business scenarios through strategic IT analysis and presentation.

CaseIT began in 2004 as a competition between undergraduate teams within SFU, and the event grew with each year: it expanded to Western Canada in 2005; across Canada in 2006; to the United States and Denmark in 2007; to Africa, Asia, and Europe in 2008; and finally to Australia this year. The current competition format of 16 teams was finalized in 2009, and in 2010 the preliminary round was introduced.

The event was chaired by Nima Sarhangpour, a fourth-year student at Beedie School of Business concentrating in Management Information Systems (MIS) and Management & Technology, and a candidate for the Business Technology Management (BTM) certificate. Sarhangpour, who is extremely passionate about CaseIT, returned for a second year to serve as Chairperson of CaseIT 2012.

“It is not often you can say you can see growth, development and legacy,” Sam Thiara, Student Engagement Manager at SFU Beedie, said of the event and the student organizers and participants. “I am very proud of their work.”

To find out more about the CaseIT MIS Case Competition, visit http://caseit.org