A ground-breaking collaboration that brought together six universities across three continents to give students an extraordinary experience of team learning has shown what can be achieved when online learning is embraced as an opportunity and not a limitation.

Akatemia’s Elinor Vettraino was the moving force behind the Global Business Challenge, ably assisted by Professor Susan Losapio of the Southern New Hampshire University in the USA and Taru Nurmala of ProAkatemia in Tampere, Finland.  They mobilised a team of 10 coaches from Finland, the USA, England and Ecuador who each coached a team of 10 students from all four countries represented in the GBC . 

Overcoming the obstacles created by time zones, culture, technology and language, the teams were set challenges by companies in each of the four participating countries, ranging from organic food distributors to a leading supplier of professional development behavioural tests.  These were real challenges and they got real responses – in one case the GBC team not only provided recommendations for how to address the issue, they actually rolled up their sleeves and did the work!  Running a games night for 70 employees to improve employee engagement was met with an enthusiastic response from the attendees.

Most important of all, the teams and coaches were able to identify substantial and profound lessons they’d learned from getting involved in the GBC.

“We’re a network of teams demonstrating what amazing power and strength there is when teams from so many countries come together”, said social entrepreneur and team coach Andy Farenden from Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln.

UPDATE:  October 2024 sees the start of the 5th year of the Global Business Challenge. 180 student participants from universities in the UK, US, Ecuador, Lithuania  and Germany working together on challenges set by our international partners. Contact us if you have a challenge for our programme participants in 2025.