Uni Students Brew Bold Ideas At Thrilling Nescafé Business Challenge Finale
The winning team took home a RM15,000 cash prize.
By Jeremy Ng — 18 Nov 2024, 12:59 PM
Nestlé Youth Innovators Programme 2024 just wrapped up the grand finale of its Nescafé Business Case Challenge, where top uni students pitched their ideas and proposals for the beloved coffee brand
From over 450 student registrations, eight top teams were handpicked to present their business plans to a panel of esteemed judges including Juan Aranols, the Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé Malaysia & Singapore.
The grand finale, which took place on 11 November, saw all the teams bring their A-game and impress the judges with their innovative ideas and convincing pitches.
Team hailing from Multimedia University (MMU), brought home the grand prize of RM15,000
They were also the team that dominated in the TikTok Voting Battle!
With the TikTok challenge drawing nearly 18 million views across all teams, the MMU team captured the public's attention with a GenZ-fied video featuring their favourite Nescafé products, capturing the public's attention and pulling in an impressive 2.7 million views on their video — the highest in the battle.
When asked about their learnings from the challenge, the team shared that inspiration can strike at any moment — even in the final minutes — so it's essential to stay open to new ideas. They emphasised the importance of trusting in your ideas and focusing on crafting solutions that directly address the problem statement.
Coming in runners-up and second runners-up were one team from Monash University and another from University of Malaya respectively
One team from Monash walked away with a RM10,000 cash prize. According to one of the team members, the whole challenge was about being innovative — so they went crazy with their ideas, while being realistic at the same time. When asked about how they would use their prize money, one of them said they'd use it for an overseas trip to Korea.
As for the second-runner up team from University of Malaya, they secured RM7,000. And fun fact, this team is comprised of biotechnology students who were headstrong and geared up for this business case challenge.
"Everybody would expect business students to win, but don't underestimate the power of science students," exclaimed one member, while encouraging all future participants to believe in their capabilities.
Nescafé Business Case Challenge brought the best out of the young minds from top universities across the country
Besides the prize money, the top performers from the Top 3 teams, along with the overall best presenter also managed to secure a guaranteed internship placement with Nestlé.
The business challenge is just one of Nescafé's many initiatives to empower young Malaysians and give them opportunities to hone their skills.
Another such initiative is the Nescafé Youth Entrepreneurship Programme (NYEP), which has trained and supported over 7,000 young entrepreneurs across 21 universities in Malaysia, equipping them with hands-on commercial skills.
Find out more about the Nescafé Business Case Challenge and the NYEP initiative today!
This Spotlight is sponsored by Nestlé.
