The One Planet MBA Sustainability Challenge offers teams from international business schools the chance to develop practical solutions to a sustainability issue. The nine teams in the 2015 final – seven from the UK, one from France, and RSM from the Netherlands – were challenged to find a solution for social enterprise Blue Venture to help the Vezo community of Madagascar to increase its socio-economic state, and to come up with recommendations to empower women in the organisation.
Empowering women in Madagascar
The RSM MBA team, which was called ‘Gaia’, won second place in the finals and brought home a trophy. The team members from RSM’s International Full-time MBA Class of 2016 were Binita Ramla (South African), Danah Lee (South Korean) and Fahimah Noor Ngah (Malaysian). Within the two days of the competition, the students put forward initiatives to empower women in the Vezo community and keep them engaged in the long-term for Blue Ventures’ activities.
Practical solutions
“The challenge serves a life purpose for us,” said Fahimah Noor Ngah. “It was tough because all teams delivered awesome ideas and presentations.” Ngah added that the whole team was passionate and confident about their idea, not only to win, but to genuinely help raising the Vezo's socio-economic state. “We offered the most simple and practical solution by re-engineering Blue Ventures' current business process that targets specifically to these local women to be empowered indirectly,” she said, adding that co-operation and idea or process realignment are the two key factors for a successful team presentation, especially when working under pressure.
Sustainability and business
Danah Lee said her biggest learning point was how to collaborate with her team members to successfully analyse the case and make a presentation within two days. “It was quite intense. To maximise efficiency of our time, we always planned before researching and made sure we all agreed on the agenda.” She added that she particularly enjoyed interacting with other MBA participants from all over the world. “It was very interesting to discuss sustainability and business with them.”
This year’s One Planet Sustainability Challenge winner was the team from the University of Birmingham.
