In collaboration with Virginia Tech’s Outreach & International Affairs, the research park has reinvented this year’s program to accommodate a virtual platform. The Global Case Challenge offers elite student teams from around the globe the opportunity to present solutions to real world industry problems.
Companies at the VTCRC and stakeholders of the program had an opportunity to present a case challenge or opportunity. The following cases were selected:
- CELLINK Life Sciences, creating the future of medicine by providing technologies, products, and services to create, understand, and master biology. The CELLINK Green Initiative case challenges students to create and develop a solution to effectively reduce waste products generated from the biotechnology industry, with emphasis on plastic and chemical waste.
- Cowden Technologies, LLC, founded in 2015 with a primary focus on providing software engineering services for external clients. On top of providing software consulting services, Cowden Technologies is currently developing autonomous drone technology that can enable remote environment management without requiring human supervision. The Cowden Technologies case challenges teams to create a practical, cost effective, and environmentally conscious solution for powering remote docking platforms for small drones, with emphasis on renewable energy and remote technology.
- Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), conducts research to save lives, time, money and the environment. As one of seven premier research institutes created by Virginia Tech to answer national challenges, VTTI is continually advancing transportation through innovation and has affected public policy on national and international levels. The VTTI case challenges students to create and develop a solution to successfully deploy driverless operations while improving accessibility and mobility for the disabled, with emphasis on accessibility for disabled riders, international outreach, and efficient driverless technology.
- Carilion Clinic, a non-profit health care organization based in Roanoke, Virginia. Through their comprehensive network of hospitals, primary and specialty physician practices and other complementary services, Carilion works together to provide quality care close to home for nearly 1 million Virginians. Carilion Clinic seeks to advance care through medical education and research. Carilion’s case challenges teams to develop an intervention that can help exhausted clinicians communicate and ensure safety behaviors are occurring (e.g., washing hands, wearing a mask, staying home when feeling sick) with their patients and colleagues on a just-in-time, user-tailored way.
International university student teams can now register and pick the case study (or more) they are most interested in developing the best solution possible for, and by doing so puts them in the running to win $40,000.
The timeline is as follows:
- July 5, 2021: Registration closes for international university teams
- August 2, 2021: Deadline to submit proposals
- August 16, 2021: Announce top finalists for each case
- August 23, 2021: Deadline to submit revised proposals from finalists
- August 25-27, 2021: A winner from each case category is chosen. Their video and solution will be presented during
Game Changer Week hosted by the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center.
August 27, 2021: One overall winner is announced at the grand finale of Game Changer Week
To learn more about, Global Case Challenge
Program contact: Nicole Luth, Global Partnership Coordinator