BSCI Student Team Qualifies for Finals in International Competition

The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has announced the six finalists competing for the prestigious Global Student Challenge title this year. In this annual competition, where teams act as a Board of Directors for their own construction company, the CIOB has a genuinely global line up of finalists, with representation from not just six different institutes but six different countries and four continents.

The top six – and the only teams now remaining of the thirty-nine who entered – are:
• Kanigara Banu – Universitas Indonesia
• KLMN Construction Group – George Brown College, Canada
• Resilient Construction – Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
• Toomer Oaks Construction – Auburn University, USA
HOTPOT CREW – Chongqing University, China
• Design & CurStruct – Curtin University, Australia

“It has been confirmed by the CIOB that our team is the first team from the United States to make the finals,” said Richard Burt, Head of the McWhorter School of Building Science.

Since 2014, the Global Student Challenge has challenged students to run their own virtual construction company, and teams are made up of full-time students studying a degree in the built environment. The competition is a real test of construction industry know-how, taking place in stages over a number of months, and student teams are tasked with running their construction company in a simulated environment using MERIT software. This specialized software was specially developed at Loughborough University to train young professionals in business development – requiring them to make decisions about staffing levels, estimating and bidding, managing cashflow, and seeking investment opportunities.

Auburn University originally had four teams competing in the CIOB Student Challenge when training started training in late January 2019. The competition began on March 1 in an on-line, seven-week process where teams had to make construction and business decisions on a weekly basis. Toomer Oaks Construction, the team that has qualified for the finals in Scotland is composed of:
• Ashley Kingry (Junior)
• Keegan Loftin (Junior)
• Braden McRae (Junior)
• Westley Stone (Junior & Team Coordinator)

es Carter, the Toomer’s Oaks Construction team mentor believes that “the CIOB Student Challenge is a great opportunity for our Auburn students to understand the complexities and challenges of running a construction company, from managing projects, bidding for work, allocating department resources and managing finances. The students learn how to make business decisions weighting the risk and opportunities of each decision. Competing against 38 other teams across the globe then provides the excitement each week on climbing the success ladder.”

The winners will be announced at the annual CIOB Presidents Dinner in Edinburgh in June, and the team that gains the Global Student Challenge title will be awarded a £2000 prize for and an invitation to the CIOB’s Presidents Dinner on 27 June 2019. This special event will be held in the Signet Library, overlooking Parliament Square in Edinburgh.

Track the success of Toomer’s Oaks Construction throughout the final stages of the competition by following the CIOB’s Twitter feed for updates: @theCIOB