International Business Agility Labs

Develop your business resilience and gain hands-on case experience working with students around the world.

Through these labs, students will gain multiple global perspectives in a fast-paced, intensive, and hands-on competition while working on a real global business issue.

The IB Agility Labs are short-term virtual case challenges that allow undergraduate students to learn from global business leaders, collaborate with international peers, and focus on business resilience. Students will benefit from exposure to an international company, work on teams with business students around the world, and gain hands-on case experience to build their resumes and CVs. These labs are offered at no cost to students. Lab applications will open at the beginning of each semester. 

Each IB Agility Lab will feature:

  • Live case from a non-U.S. company
  • Students placed on mixed multinational teams
  • Introduction to doing business in the country of focus
  • Virtual cultural activity and student mixer
  • Asynchronous and synchronous sessions

Eligibility

The IB Agility Labs are open to all second-year sophomore to senior undergraduate business majors and minors.

About the Case

The live case for each lab will be from a company based outside of the U.S. and will focus on one of the following cross-functional themes: fintech, sustainability, e-commerce, and innovation. Students will hear directly from business leaders about the business problem before presenting their analysis and recommendations to the company and panel of judges. To learn more about our most recent labs, read about the challenges tackled by students in the IB Agility Lab: FinTech in Singapore and IB Agility Lab: Sustainability in Iceland.

The Format

Each IB Agility Lab will be completely virtual and will include synchronous and asynchronous sessions. Round one of the competition will be a recorded presentation submission and round two of the competition (final round) will be live. The exact timing of each lab will be announced closer to the start date and will vary based on the time zones of the company and the participants. All students will be expected to adapt to working across time zones, as this is the reality of doing business across borders. A sample schedule is included below.

Week 1

  • Receive case and begin working on mixed multinational teams

Week 2

  • Continue working on case
  • Attend LIVE virtual orientation and cultural activity
  • Attend LIVE virtual economic overview and company/case presentation

Week 3

  • First round of competition: submit a video recording of presentation
  • Final teams are announced
  • Attend LIVE final team presentations
  • Receive participation certificate

All sessions will be recorded should students have a scheduling conflict due to classes or other priorities.

Information for International Partners

The Robert H. Smith School of Business is proud to partner with esteemed business schools around the world. If you are from a Global Business School Network (GBSN) member school or a Maryland Smith international exchange partner and would like more information about the International Business Agility Labs please contact CGB at smithglobal@umd.edu.

Please see below news stories about the previous IB Agility Labs.

Questions?

Email smithglobal@umd.edu.

This event is sponsored in part by CIBE, a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

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