28 February 2022
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
An all-female team of engineering and business students from Munster Technological University represented Ireland on the international stage in the Engineering and Commerce Case Competition 2022 (ENGCOMM), which was hosted by Concordia University in Montreal, Canada from 22nd to 26th February. This prestigious global competition which has teams participating from Canada, America, Ireland and Egypt, was held virtually this year due to Covid-19 restrictions
From left to right: Robyn Coleman (3rd-year MTU Business Information Systems), Elaina Norris (4th-year MTU Biomedical Engineering), Uzoma Ogwudiegwu (3rd-year MTU Biomedical Engineering) and Matea Jelas (3rd-year MTU Business Information Systems).
Pic: Brian Lougheed
From left to right: Elaina Norris (4th-year MTU Biomedical Engineering), Robyn Coleman (3rd-year MTU Business Information Systems), Uzoma Ogwudiegwu (3rd-year MTU Biomedical Engineering), and Matea Jelas (3rd-year MTU Business Information Systems).
Pic: Brian Lougheed
ENGCOMM is an annual case competition focused on showcasing collaborative excellence between the engineering and business disciplines. It is designed to simulate a real-life industry challenge, which allows participants to demonstrate their excellence in both their given disciplines as well as collaborative skills that are needed to be successful in solving such problems. Since 2013, ENGCOMM has been leading a global initiative to encourage multidisciplinary dialogue and collaboration between engineering and business students and enabling students to engage in a daring new learning experience before beginning their professional careers. It is the world’s only student-led multidisciplinary case competition, and rates as one of the top case challenges in North America.
The MTU team, which competed under the team name Renew Consulting, comprises two Business Information Systems students, Robyn Coleman (third-year) and Matea Jelas (third-year) and two Biomedical Engineering students, Elaina Norris (fourth-year) and Uzoma Ogwudiegwu (third-year). Throughout the competition, the Renew team received expert advice and guidance from their team mentors, Dr. Paul Keane and Dr. Hugh O’Donnell, both lecturers in Mechanical and Biomedical Manufacturing Engineering at MTU.
The competition this year consisted of three distinct industry cases, to be worked out with the highest quality of problem-solving abilities by the student teams. Each case preparation was followed by a timed presentation, which was judged by a respected judging panel and graded according to the case-specific grading schemes written and reviewed by ENGCOMM’s Academics department. Every case is sponsored by a particular industry, and formulated and reviewed by professional case writers, sponsors, and ENGCOMM’s Vice-President of Academics.
MTU ENGCOMM team member, Robyn Coleman, said:
“I am so proud to have represented MTU in the international ENGCOMM competition held in Montreal this week. It was a gruelling week of blind tasks and presenting our solutions, but we finished second in our division, coming behind the University of Vermont, who went on to be the overall winners. I am so grateful for all the feedback and support from the judges and organisers at ENGCOMM. I have learned so much, and gained such valuable experience to bring forward into my career.”
Staff and students at MTU followed the competition closely, and were rooting strongly for their team. Carole O’Leary, Project Manager at MTU’s Innovation & Enterprise Office said:
“We are very proud of the Renew Consulting team which represented MTU at ENGCOMM 2022, following their success at the national ESB challenge. It is really wonderful to see an all-female team of engineering and business students from MTU competing successfully on the global stage.”
