Technology and Operations Management

About The Global Student Challenge

Global Student Challenge

About the Global Student Challenge

The Global Student Challenge is the #1 SCM Student Competition in the world, which allows students to gain valuable knowledge, further develop their skills, expand their professional network and much more. The Challenge pits teams from top business schools and universities from across the globe against each other in the search for the world’s top talent in Value Chain Management. By participating in this Challenge, students experience the life of a corporate executive by running their own virtual company together with their team.

Only the top 10% of the teams from curriculum courses get invited to one of the three Global Qualification Rounds (GQR). During these GQRs, teams from around the globe compete against each other for a guaranteed spot in the Global Final.

History of the Global Student Challenge

The Global Student Challenge was first launched in 2014 and quickly managed to grasp the world’s attention. Already, in the first year it was among the top 10 student competitions worldwide. In the second year we rose to top 5 and by the third year we firmly grabbed the number 1 spot with nearly 9,000 registrations from all 5 continents totaling 120 countries. Nowadays, we have more than 30,000 students participating each year and that number continues to grow.

Cal Poly Pomona joined the Challenge for the first time in 2017 and turned out to be a strong contender by earning 4th place. In 2018 the CPP team tied for 3rd place based on points but when zooming into the details they had a slightly lower ROI so again they took 4th place.

The Global Final 2021 online for the first time

For the past 8 years the Global Final Week of the Global Student Challenge has been hosted by Windesheim University of applied sciences and organized in partnership with Inchainge. In previous years the Global Final Week would take place at the Windesheim campus in Zwolle, The Netherlands. In 2021 for the first time, we had to host the Global Final Week on an online platform. It turned out to be a great success! We turned this unfortunate circumstance into an opportunity to be even more inclusive. This was the biggest Global Final ever with 197 students in 48 participating teams from 33 different universities and 17 countries battling against each other for the Champion title. Windesheim and Inchainge were proud to present this year’s Global Finalists and World Champions (read all about the Global Final incl. video).

The Global Student Challenge 2021/2022

The Challenge, now in its 9th edition, pits teams from top business schools and universities from across the globe against each other in the search for the world’s top talent in Value Chain Management.

The Global Student Challenge is so much more than just an international student competition! It offers students the chance to gain valuable knowledge and further develop the hard and soft skills that they learned during their curriculum course.

Ultimately, what we aim to achieve with the Global Student Challenge is to help students expand their professional network which might open new doors for them and their future.

The Global Final will be an intense competition among the top value chain students around the world. Unexpected turns of events will make the battle fierce as teams compete for the coveted Global Champion title and EUR 10,000 worth of prizes!

Visit the Global Student Challenge page to learn more.