This year’s MBA Challenge to raise funds for the annual Operation Santa Claus (OSC) charity campaign is off to a flying start. A total of 15 teams from some of the top graduate business programmes in Hong Kong have signed up to compete and their plans for selling merchandise, spreading awareness and doing their bit to help those in need are fast taking shape.
Three of the teams represent the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and, in common with all the entrants, they will receive initial seed capital of HK$3,000-10,000 from event sponsor Swire Properties. This can only be used for buying products or services from this year’s selected OSC beneficiaries or social enterprises in order to get their various fund-raising projects off the ground.
After that, it will be full steam ahead until the end of the year organising events, manning booths, collecting donations and. all being well, using marketing skills and applied business know-how to outperform each of the other contenders.
The Santa Rocks team of Jason Yeung, Khiem Vu, Candy Chiu, Ketan Vaid, Monica Dee and Gazal Chandra sees the Challenge as a chance to put MBA lessons to use and a great way of giving something back to society.
“This allows us to make a meaningful difference for needy people in Hong Kong while taking on new challenges and learning as much as we can,” says team spokesman Yeung. “First of all, we hope to learn about the social enterprise sector in Hong Kong and to know more about the OSC beneficiaries and what they do.”
For three months, the team will in effect be running its own small social enterprise. That presents a test of everything from strategy and management to networking and entrepreneurial skills. The current plans include generating funds from a charity run for students, auctioning items at a Christmas party involving faculty and alumni, and selling custom-designed T-shirts and hoodies.
The NFS team from CUHK consists of Yu Hsin-ting, Wang Yi-ting, Lai Hsuan-yi, Anubhav Jain, Metha Watcharaumnuay and Dheerja Aroroa and they aim to draw on experience of working on charity initiatives their various home countries.