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Manchester Business School students celebrate success

24 Apr 2014

Teams sweep board, making us first university to win all categories

MBS win

Manchester Business School is celebrating the amazing success of its students who took part in the IT Management for Business Degree (ITMB) e-skills competition.

Led by lecturer Ali Owrak, the teams won first place in every category and received a special prize for best university. No other university has ever won all categories.

The competition involved students from 19 universities pitching their project ideas to some of the largest employers in the UK with one aim – to change young people's perceptions of the careers they can enjoy within the industry and inspire more to pursue these careers.

The teams were awarded £1600 prize money in total as well as a trophy to bring back to the school. Their success didn’t stop there – news of their work has spread and they have been approached by a number of companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Morrisons and HSBC, keen to work with the students. Maggie Berry, director of womenintechnology.co.uk, has also been in touch.

One of the most important conversations to have taken place, given the aim of the project, has been with Bob Clift, Head of the ITMB Programme at e-skills UK, to talk about where next to take the project, with a national roll out to schools looking likely. News of the success was also passed to the Education Department and Downing Street has written to Ali to discuss the next steps!

Ali said: “Normally each group competing would work independently, however this year we decided to make sure that whilst each group presents their unique idea, the message remains the same across the board so as to amplify it.

“Our campaign is called ‘IT Counts’. We’ve developed a website, produced video content, started a twitter page and Facebook page and soon there will be an app to support the campaign. We’ve even produced badges with the campaign logo on.

“I’m exceptionally proud of what we achieved and the hard work from the students. We set out at the start of this project to unite students from all three years, improving team work and ensuring the built a trust with one another. We wanted to ultimately create an ‘ITMB family’; we definitely achieved that and more!”