The Capsim Challenge is on! Each spring and fall the Foundation and Capstone Challenge® offers recent participants the opportunity to test their business acumen against other individuals or teams from all over the world.

The Capsim business simulation experience is so rewarding, many students grab the opportunity to follow up their course with the Challenge, testing their new-found expertise in an international environment.

More than 7,500 teams and individual participants have competed in the challenge since 2003, representing tens of thousands of students from universities all over the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Chile, France, Kenya, Poland, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Taiwan and Nicaragua.

The Challenge is open to all university students who have registered for either the Capsim Capstone or Foundation business simulation in the previous year. The winner of the Spring 2010 Capstone Challenge, Richard Powell, is from the University of Redlands, San Diego. The winning team members in the Spring 2010 Foundation Challenge, Sam Bradshaw, Justin Johnson, Alexander Malana, Bill Reaugh and Shaun Youngberg are from Drexel University. The 12 teams of finalists in the Spring Challenge came from the US, Australia, Canada, India and China.

May Zelner, coordinator of the Capsim Challenge, said “I joke with students about their success in the competition, but I honestly won’t be surprised to see one of them on the cover of Forbes magazine one day!”

She said the competition was very intense. “During qualifying rounds, students make a new set of decisions every day, whereas in their courses they are used to making decisions once a week and having time to scrutinize the results and collaborate with teammates. During the finals it is even more intense with Round 1 on Saturday, then Rounds 2 through 8 on Sunday.

“For international students that time frame is quite a challenge but we have had winners from India, Taiwan, Hong Kong and from Australia who took the challenge and prevailed. In India, for example, Round 2 of the finals begins at 3am on Monday, with six more rounds every hour after that!  The students who compete have jobs, family obligations and other courses to study so their time is precious. It is so impressive to see the focus and effort they put into the competition.”

Registration for the Fall Challenge 2010 opens on October 4th and closes October 29th. Qualifying rounds begin November 1st and end November 11th. The top six teams on the Balanced Scorecard in the Capstone and Foundation competitions will progress to the finals which begin November 12th. Winners will be announced on November 14th 6pm EST.

Further information is available on the Fall 2010 Capstone & Foundation Challenge and the Latest Winners pages at www.capsim.com.