The REN/ORION team, composed of Marta Machado, Guilherme Ribeiro, and Vasco Marques, students of Applied Mathematics and Computation at Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, received the Luís Alves Costa Award, which recognises the best student team, in the 46th edition of the Global Management Challenge. Additionally, the group placed 4th among the 8 national finalist teams.

“Winning the award for best student team is a source of immense pride and a clear recognition of the effort, dedication, and hard work we put in throughout the competition”, says Vasco Marques. Guilherme Ribeiro “highly” recommends participating in the competition, highlighting the importance of the experience in simulating company management within a “dynamic and realistic” environment, as well as the “strengthening” of skills such as teamwork, communication, and cooperation.  Furthermore, he believes that, on a personal level, the experience allowed him to “develop skills such as critical thinking and decision-making ability”.

Without ruling out the possibility of competing again in the future, Marta Machado emphasises that her priorities are to “complete her degree” and pursue a master’s degree. She also extends her thanks to Técnico “for the opportunity provided” and to the event organisers “for the demanding and extremely rewarding experience”.

The Global Management Challenge is a Portuguese initiative that began in 1980 and has since expanded to more than 30 countries worldwide. This international strategy and management competition consists of an interactive simulation in which teams manage a company to achieve the best possible performance. This edition featured 457 teams, 8 of which reached the national finals. Portugal will be represented by the winning team CGD/ACCOUNTEAM, which will participate in this year’s international finals in September, in Nigeria.