An Abbotsford resident was among a three-person team who placed first at a university business competition last month.
Sukhwant Rathour, who attends Simon Fraser University (SFU)’s Beedie School of Business, competed with his team at the APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge from May 3 to 6 at Singapore Management University.
His team, along with fellow students Samantha Chan and Shadnam Khan, took the gold medal out of 16 teams from across the globe.
During the competition, students were given 24 hours to develop a new and feasible business solution for a real world company, which they presented three times to separate judging panels.
The focus of this year’s challenge was Grab, a Singapore-based app that allows commuters to connect with taxi or citizen drives, much like Uber. Grab operates in 30 cities across six countries in Southeast Asia.
The SFU team’s plan integrated Grab’s existing app with information on public transit and cost.
It also gave real-time estimates that monitor traffic and calculate the cost of each option.
The team prepared for the competition through weekly eight- to 10-hour practice sessions and two trial 24-hour sessions.
This is the first time a Beedie team has won the competition in the eight years they have competed.