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 business 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.
IB Agility Labs 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 business majors and minors, undergraduates and graduates.
About the Case
The live case for each lab will be from a company based outside of the U.S. 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 past labs, read 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.
Tentative Schedule: April 16–23, 2026
- April 16
Welcome session
Virtual networking activity
Case release - April 17
Session with the protagonist of the case - April 18–19
Team preparation for Round 1 submission - April 20
Round 1 submission: Recorded presentation due by 6 p.m. EST - April 21
Judging of Round 1 completed by 6 p.m. EST
Finalist teams announced by 8 p.m. EST - April 22
Break day — finalist teams prepare live presentations - April 23
Final day — live final presentations and closing session
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 a Maryland Smith international exchange partner and would like more information about the International Business Agility Labs, please contact CGB at smithglobal@umd.edu.
Questions?
Email smithglobal@umd.edu.
This event is sponsored in part by CIBE, a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education.