The hungarian team achieves a historic success – corvinus university students are the first european team to win the cornell uni

The CEMS Global Alliance Diploma Programme’s partner university in Hungary is Corvinus University of Budapest, which offers study opportunities and internships abroad to students who will earn a double degree at the end of their studies.  

Started as an exercise, ended as a sensational success 

The team members met at a joint university course, where their lecturer, Balázs Felsmann spotted the talented students and prepared them for the John Molson MBA International Case Competition to be held in Canada, as a long-term objective. ‘In order to be as well prepared as possible for the competition, we actively sought opportunities to improve. Gergely spent his foreign CEMS semester at the Cornell University, and he suggested that we compete in the Cornell Emerging Markets Institute case study competition. We thought it would be a good opportunity for us, it would help the team to bond, improve our skills, and, if nothing else, it would be good practice. Fortunately, it became much more than that…’, Tamás recalled.  

EMI Corning competition and preparation  

In this case competition, the teams had to create a strategy to revitalise a Brazilian company manufacturing semiconductor materials and to make it internationally competitive. ‘We had one week to put together a presentation of up to 6 minutes with voiceover, that would provide a solution to the company’s problems’, said Gergely. The biggest challenge in terms of preparation was that all four of them were in different cities during the competition: Luca joined the joint discussions from Hungary, Adél from Dublin, Tamás from London and Gergely from the United States. ‘As we learned afterwards, solutions from 127 teams were submitted to the jury, and the best five were invited to the Cornell Emerging Institute conference in New York’, added Gergely.  

The final and the well-deserved victory  

In the final competition, the team participated in the presentation of the solution in a hybrid format: Adél and Gergely were present on the spot, while Luca and Tamás were online. ‘Technically, we didn’t have to make produce any new material, but we were given a longer timeframe to explain our solution. After the presentations, there was a short Q&A session when the jury asked the team questions, and then the results were announced’, said Luca. It was an inconceivable victory for them, which none of them had expected against two American and two Indian teams, as no European team had ever won in the history of the competition. ‘I am very proud of the team and of what we have created’, Luca admitted.   

Photo: The Team

What comes after this success? 

‘When our team’s name was announced at the moment of the victory, we didn’t expect it to have such a resonance: It was covered in the Hungarian press, on the radio and on many portals, which was an amazing feeling. We have also been approached by various companies who wanted to meet us and inquired about our future plans. At the University, our teachers were very proud of us, which is one of the biggest appreciation for us’, said Adél, the fourth member of the team.  

‘It’s impossible to say exactly what kind of opportunity this victory will bring to us, but I’m sure that winning a world-class team competition in New York will open many doors for us in our careers in the future’, Adél added. After a very successful preparation, the team finished second in the originally targeted Canadian competition in January.  

Congratulations on the results achieved, and we wish the team members good luck and many more similar results!    

Written by: Dóra Völgyi  

Cover image: Gergely Keményfi