• Home
• News Article

The Apprentice sweeps Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar

Students take part in weeklong version of the popular American reality television show

DOHA, QATAR ­- Making money and beating out the competition: that's what business is all about. At least, that's what it was about for a week at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. Students at the Education City campus put their skills, instincts and business sense to work in the campus's second version of the American reality show The Apprentice.

"The Apprentice is all about teamwork, collaborative planning and finding the individual strength of each team member and using it for the greater good of the team," says Saad Al-Matwi, junior business administration major who served on the board of directors for the competition.

Forty-five Carnegie Mellon students were randomly split into nine teams and given QR 300 in Virgin Megastore gift vouchers. They then had three days to earn as much money as they could. Once the teams turned the vouchers into cash, they quickly set out to make their fortune. A perceived need for lunch and snack options led many of the teams to set up food stands in the atrium of Carnegie Mellon's new building. Booths were hocking everything from ice cream sundaes and karak to falafels and candy bars.

"Food is an easy way to make quick money," says Al-Matwi. Other teams sold customized T-shirts, created unique laptop covers, charged to play video games and sold advertising. To keep things on the up and up, teams were required to keep detailed records of their business transactions, and had to submit documentation of their business concepts. At the end of Round 1, the teams raised a collective QR 30,000: more than double the amount that was raised in the 2007 competition. But unlike last year, the game did not end there.

A second round was added to the competition to make it more challenging. However, based on what they earned in Round 1, only the top four teams made it to Round 2. In this round, each team had to produce a television commercial to market chewing gum to the business community. Five Carnegie Mellon professors judged the television commercials on points such as creativity, brand recall, positioning, reaction and context.

"We added the second round to make The Apprentice about more than just raising money. It's about marketing, planning and strategy, and it gives the students a chance to apply what they learn in the classroom," says Omar El Zoheery, a sophomore business student on the board of directors.

Team Synergy's commercial for a new 'stick-free' gum that opted for comical acting and the Pink Panther soundtrack in lieu of dialogue captured first place in Round 2. This win secured the team a first place victory in the overall competition.

"Before the competition, most of us didn't know each other. So we had to learn to work together while getting to know each other," says Shweta Seetharaman, Synergy team member and business administration major. "We learned that even if we disagreed, we had to find a way around it to work toward our goal. And it paid off."

Seetharaman's team members were business administration majors Dana Hadan, Mridula Mukandan and Mohamed Al Saad; and Khaled Ziyaeen, who majors in both business administration and computer science.

Instead of awarding all of the money to the winning team, Al-Matwi says the board decided to split the cash among the four teams that made it to Round 2. "Everyone worked so hard and raised so much more money than last year, so we wanted them all to get some reward," he says.

Team Synergy's hard work and humorous commercial earned them QR 15,000; the second place team took home QR 6,500; the third place team took home QR 4,000; and the fourth place team took home QR 2,500. The Photography Club and the AV Club were each given QR 400 for their support and work on the Apprentice competition.

The Apprentice is one of the activities organized by the Carnegie Mellon Business Association. CMBA is a student organization that aims to cultivate the strongest business students in the region, immerse business minds in a business culture and establish long-term relationships with the business community. Events such as the Apprentice add another facet to the Carnegie Mellon Qatar education by promoting teamwork, fostering relationships across majors, inspiring innovation and encouraging competition.

-Ends-

ABOUT CARNEGIE MELLON
With more than a century of academic excellence and innovative research, Carnegie Mellon University is a global leader in education with real-world applications. Consistently top ranked, Carnegie Mellon offers a distinct mix of programs to its 10,000 students at campuses around the globe. Core values of innovation, creativity, problem solving and collaborative teamwork provide the foundation for everything we do.

At the invitation of Qatar Foundation, Carnegie Mellon joined Education City in 2004. Here, Qatar Foundation has created a world-class center for scholarship and research that is the ideal complement to Carnegie Mellon's tradition of innovation through collaboration. Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar offers its highly regarded undergraduate programs in business administration, computer science and information systems to students in Qatar and the Gulf Region.

Noha Al Afifi
+974 454 8491
nohaa@qatar.cmu.edu

© Press Release 2008