İTÜ Team Came First in the USA-Based Student Case Study Competition

Istanbul Technical University’s team of three students from İTÜ Faculty of Management, Management Engineering Department won the first place in 2020 ASEM Conference Student Case Study Competition held online by the American Society for Engineering Management - ASEM.

 

Istanbul Technical University’s team of three students from İTÜ Management Engineering Department won the first place in the USA-based 2020 ASEM Conference Student Case Study Competition held online on 28-30 October 2020 by ASEM (American Society for Engineering Management), which is considered one of the world’s most prestigious organizations in the field of Engineering Management.

Outstripping 9 teams, 8 of which are US universities, our students earned the title of the first student team from outside the US to win this competition.

Esra Okumuş from Bahçeşehir University Engineering Management Department was also in our student team made up of our students Hüseyin Umutcan Ay, Ayşe Nisa Akgün and Nur Hilal Gürgöze, whose academic advisor was our Faculty of Management’s faculty member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nihan Yıldırım. 

Our team achieved this significant success by outstripping U.S. Military Academy, which kept hold of the first place for many years in the competition being held for 14 years, as well as leading US universities such as U.S. Air Force Academy, Missouri S&T, Montana State University, Mississippi State University, James Madison University, Western Michigan and also the Brazilian student team, which was the other team from outside the US.

Our team was acclaimed by the jury and the conference participants. In addition, it won the second place after U.S. Military Academy in the Community Awards determined by the votesof the conference participants.

The team’s advisor Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nihan Yıldırım, expressed that they were the only team that represented Turkey in the competition and said, “With İTÜ, it is the first time that a university from Turkey attended this competition.”

Yıldırım also said the following about our students’ success: “Our students prepared well under difficult conditions without getting together.Then they joined the competition online. In the competition our students Hüseyin Umutcan Ay, Ayşe Nisa Akgün and Nur Hilal Gürgöze from İTÜ and Esra Okumuş from Bahçeşehir University Engineering Management Department made a case analysispresentation on engineering management. And with their presentation they were deemed worthy for the first place in the competition. This way, a university student group from outside America won the Student Case Analysis Competition for the first time. We are very happy and proud about the success of our students. We were able to join this competition because it was online this year. However, to be able to attend on-site in the following years, we need resources. We expect public and private sector organizations to sponsorİTÜ students.”

Our student Hüseyin Umutcan Ay, who was the team leader, stated that the competition organized by ASEM is a very prestigious competition. Ay expressed that they prepared for this competition in a very short time and said, “Compared with the other schools that attend regularly every year and have knowledge about the competition, there was a lot of pressure on us. However, with both the excitement we felt for being the first participating group from Turkeyand our trust in our advisor, we accepted the invitation, started working immediately and entered the competition.”

Ay underlined that his teammates were very devoted and said, “When we came out of this competition in which we developed short and long term strategies under the Covid-19 pandemic for a leading technology company in its sector, we knew that we did a good job. The jury presentations that took place the next week did not prove us wrong and we left this competition for which we worked as short as three months as the champion.” Ay proceeded as follows:

“The praise ‘I have never seen something like this’ we received from the president of the jury after the award ceremony is one of the praises that made me proudest in my life. The management engineering education given by our school was very effective in our obtaining this result in such a short time. The global perspective we acquired through this education helped us exceed American standards, the up-to-date methodology it contained facilitated our finding solutions to the problems of the modern world while at the same time the local focus of our education made us special and different from other contestants especially in our ability to work under limitations. We are very happy to represent our country successfully and become the champion.”The competition’s director Prof. Greg Sedrick expressed that our student team is one of the best performing teams in 14 years.

We congratulate our students and academician who made us proud with their achievement in the international arena and wish them continued success.