Monday, 04 June, 2012

University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD) has won the second prize in the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Global Business Challenge Middle East finals that featured five teams from the UAE and one from Saudi Arabia.CIMA is the world's largest professional body of management accountants, offering finance qualifications for business. The CIMA Global Business Challenge is an international competition designed to bring out the best in potential business leaders among young people. This competition provides students with an opportunity to test the depth of their financial knowledge, try out their business management skills, and expand upon their competitive ability.The UOWD team ‘Accounting Synergy’ included Robert Watts, Meghna Agrawal, Maheq Fatema Gheewala and Fatima Najum Siddique made an outstanding presentation, winning the second position with Robert Watts, the Team Leader, winning the Best Presenter award.The participants were required to develop a report and present their solutions to varied business scenarios as management consultants to the board of a fictitious company ‘V and Y Productions.’ The team was additionally coached in presentation skills by Dr Swapna Koshy, Assistant Professor at UOWD and mentor of the UOWD Public Speaking Club. ‘Accounting Synergy’ competed with 270 teams from the Middle East region to enter the third round. Globally, 9000 students from 23 regions participated in the first two stages.“It was rather intimidating to face the panel of judges in such a challenging competition,” said Robert Watts, the UOWD Team Leader. “Though it was disappointing not to have won the first prize, the quality of our presentation was endorsed through the Best Presenter award decided by the judges.”“The CIMA Global Business Challenge presented our students a unique opportunity to apply their business management skills to some real-life business issues,” said the mentor of UOWD team, Dr Mufeed Rawashdeh, Associate Professor of Accounting at UOWD. “It was gratifying to see their high levels of business expertise and confidence.”