16th International Workshop - USA: Part 6: Finals

There came the day. After surviving five days of hard work, after suffering rain and sun, cold and heat, the beach and the indoor swimming pool, the jacuzzi and the sixty-year old waitress at the hotel bar… after all that came the day. Time for the Big 16^th International Workshop – Bo Cash Business Game Finale!


Tuesday morning we left Point Pleasant, for a tree hour ride to Long Island, New York. At the New York Institute of Technology - (NYIT), the local University College where the USA team was from, we had a small tour on campus. It was exactly like in the movies, rather small buildings with big parking lots in between and a lot of different sport courts. They even had a Starbucks inside their school cafeteria!  

After the short tour we headed to the location where the finals were going to be held. It was not just in an aula, conference room or hall. No ladies and gentlemen, this is the USA… We had the presentation in a f*ing mansion! If you want to see how insanely awesome it looked like: DeSeversky Mansion. The Belgian dudes had the privilege to have a small tour around the mansion, as our American friend had worked there over the summer. Pretty Insane is probably the best word combination…

After the dean of NYIT (he had long hair and crocodile leather boots) and some other ‘high officials’ had joined us in the main dining room, the presentations were held. I am not going to bore you with too much info about that. Let’s be fast and just say the tree finalist-teams had a Belgian on board. So yes, Place 3, 2 & 1 were for a Belgian Team Member. All of the students (and professors) had the right to vote for which team/company had the best ‘future opportunities’. I put my votes for the team that won, because –no offence to the others- they were simply the best in the presentation. Although their numbers weren’t the best, their company’s future looked the brightest. Hurrah, hurrah! Everyone got a ‘Participation’ certificate and then it was time for a buffet-dinner.

After dinner we took the bus once more and headed for our final destination.
The Empire State's capital.

16th International Workshop - USA edition: participants

Oh, by the way, did I mention to you that my team “crApple”, was the winner of the losing finalists-finals? So basically we were winners as well!