They won 70,000 SEK in an entrepreneurship competition—without using AI

A strong team spirit and a clear, high-energy pitch. That was the winning formula for the students who won the Entrepreneurship Challenge at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) at Jönköping University.

“The funny thing is that we did it without using AI at all. We were so engrossed in our discussions that we forgot about it,” says Ellen Nordling, a member of the winning team

The prize of 70,000 kronor is provided by Aktiestinsen.

The Entrepreneurship Challenge student competition is held annually at Jönköping International Business School to foster creativity, entrepreneurship, and interdisciplinary thinking, as well as team spirit and collaboration. This year’s assignment was to develop concrete proposals to strengthen JIBS’s position as “the most entrepreneurial business school in Scandinavia,” a task that proved to be a perfect fit for the winning team.

"We established a culture within the group"

"We had a team-building session a week before the competition to establish a culture within the group. We identified each other’s strengths and laid out a plan for the competition. We also talked about making an effort to unlock all the potential that exists at Jönköping International Business School, but that we had to put that on hold for the time being. And that’s exactly what became the case study in the competition!," says Ellen Nordling.

She was part of the winning team along with Raivo Kleijsen Laas, Juan Cruz Diaz, and Felix Rydberg, all of whom are studying the International Management program at Jönköping International Business School.

Changed 80 percent

Despite thorough preparation, the winning team had to rethink their approach several times.

“We focused heavily on understanding what the problem was, but after feedback from our mentors, we realized that our solution didn’t address the problem. So between our first and second pitch, we changed maybe 80 percent of the content and put a lot of energy into having a clear ‘hook’ in our presentation, including through a short role-play,” says Felix.

Their proposal focused on strengthening student engagement through greater flexibility, more value-adding live events, and better utilization of the school’s international environment.

Captured the audience’s attention

“We wanted to win to gain credibility to move forward with this issue. We have ideas that the competition jury thinks are good and wants to see something happen with them,” says Ellen.

Anna Blombäck, Associate Dean of Education at Jönköping Ingernational Business School and one of the competition’s jury members, believes the winners delivered a very strong presentation with a creative and somewhat provocative opening that captured the audience’s attention.

“Their solution not only identified actionable ways to augment the current E-challenge format but also had multiple ideas for strengthening the culture and practice of entrepreneurship at JIBS. All the teams proposed solutions will be reviewed to tease out how this creativity might lead to real action for JIBS and the competition,” says Anna Blombäck.

She considers the Entrepreneurship Challenge one of the highlights of the year.

"Confirms the quality of our students"

“Seeing the overall engagement in this competition and listening to the team’s presentations is not just very inspiring, but it also confirms the caliber of our students and the faculty training them.”

How do you celebrate a 70,000-krona prize?

"First, we have to write an assignment," says Ellen with a laugh. "But we’re going to celebrate, too."

They don’t want to reveal what they’ll do with the money just yet.

“We’ll keep that a secret until it happens. But the plan is to do something fun together before graduation,” says Felix.

Read more about the Entrepreneurship Challenge here Opens in new window.