A case competition is the closest thing to a real boardroom decision you’ll get while you’re still in college: you’re handed an ambiguous, high-stakes business scenario, expected to make a clear recommendation, and then defend it under pressure. In the materials we’ve been building, the purpose is explicit—this competition evaluates how students make business decisions in an AI-enabled environment, and there is no single correct answer; what matters is the quality of your judgment.

For a college student, that’s exactly why it’s worth doing. You’ll practice the skills employers actually screen for—turning imperfect information into a decision, showing where AI helped accelerate your thinking (and where it didn’t), and proving you can validate outputs rather than blindly trusting them. You’ll also sharpen the “executive-ready” muscle: communicate concisely, show the tradeoffs you considered, anticipate risk (operational, financial, reputational), and answer questions like a leader who owns the recommendation. In short, you’re not competing to be “right”—you’re competing to show you can think like the person who has to sign off on the decision.

And yes—winning teams earn scholarship money, so there’s real upside along with the real-world experience. The top two teams will split up to $7,000  award money.

• First place team will receive $1,000 per team member (4 team members max)

• Second place team will receive $750 per team member (4 team members max)