Victoria students make a splash in Vegas

A video starring three Masters students from the Faculty of Commerce and Administration beat 12 universities in an international competition held in Las Vegas recently.

The Victoria team – Dustin Matthews, Mina Moayyed, and Clare Teague – were selected to represent the Asia Pacific region in the CA World Finals of the International Case Competition on the Strategic Value of IT Management.

As part of the competition, all teams in the world finals were required to produce a video to introduce themselves and to demonstrate some knowledge of IT management issues and CA Technologies. They were also provided with a case study of a company in the throes of change, and asked to evaluate its IT department and infrastructure, and make recommendations on how the company could adapt and align technology to better support the changing business environment.

Although Victoria was not among the six teams that went through to the second part of the case competition, their video was judged to be the best.

"Victoria's video was played widely at the conference," said Andy Cooper, CA Technologies Vice President Marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan.

"There were more than 7,000 attendees this year, including James Cameron, producer of Avatar, who was keynote speaker at the plenary session."

For their video, the team dressed as characters from local blockbuster films including a Naa'vi from Avatar and an Orc from Lord of the Rings to promote Wellington as Wellywood, the Hollywood of New Zealand.

The video shows these icons of the New Zealand film industry seeking advice from Andy Cooper, their coach Dr Jim Sheffield from Victoria Management School, and Cory Grant from CA Technologies NZ.

The team wanted the judges in Las Vegas to know about "their can do attitude that wins Oscars for New Zealand".

"The team is thrilled with the result," said Dr Sheffield, who is also Regional Coordinator of the CA Technologies International Case Competition.

"It was a great experience for them to compete in a major international competition and they are grateful for all the support they have received in preparing for the contest."

The video was directed by Rochelle Savage, Distance Learning Manager from the School of Marketing and International Business and edited by ITS Multimedia Technician Steve Cochran.