Working closely with the world
Rising to the challenge of coordinating an international team of students has won a Victoria University student the top award in a global business competition.
Victoria University business student Jake McInteer, of Whitby, was presented with the Global Enterprise Experience ANZ Champion Team Award at Parliament.
Mr McInteer headed a team of seven that he had never met and they came up with a scheme where a student from the developed world would sponsor and entrepreneur from a village in the developing world.
The team included people from Bangladesh, Nigeria, Nepal, Colombia, Rwanda and two French women who were studying in Scotland.
‘‘It was definitely a challenge,’’ Mr McInteer said.
‘‘You’ve got the small things like time zones and then you’ve got the harder things like communication and everybody communicating in different ways,’’ he said.
‘‘There was conflict – everybody worked and thought in different ways.
‘‘Some people work right up to the deadline – procrastinate and then, bang, work really hard. That’s the type of person they are.
‘‘The others in the team would get going early on and finish it.
‘‘It took us about 12 days to come up with the ideas and select what we were going to go with,’’ Mr McInteer said.
From there jobs were allocated to the team in pairs and they each carried out their own tasks separately.
‘‘It was a really cool experience,’’ he said. ‘‘It was different to anything else I’ve ever done at university.’’
Micro financing entrepreneurs was not something Mr McInteer planned to do in his working life.
‘‘It’s not really where I’m driven. I like computers and that kind of stuff but if the opportunity arises I would be more than happy to do it because it’s something that can really make a difference.’’
When Mr McInteer graduates this year, he plans to take up a job offer from IBM in Wellington, as a graduate consultant.