Unilever announces winners of its 2nd Idea Trophy competition

The Idea Trophy competition is a global Unilever initiative with different chapters around the world. It provides senior level students with the opportunity to create a business strategy that will deliver the requested results.

This year, students from American University of Sharjah (AUS), American University in Dubai (AUD) and University of Dubai (UD) were asked to develop a business strategy around Lipton Chai Latte. The strategy should help the brand to further penetrate the youth market and position Lipton Chai Latte as a trendy and delicious beverage.

Team "Blue Dots", from the American University in Dubai, outshined other short-listed teams and deservingly won first place in the competition. Each member of the team won a two month summer internship with Unilever Gulf in addition to I-pad Tablets.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Waqas Javed, Foods, Refreshments & Home Care - Marketing Director at Unilever Gulf, congratulated the winning team and added, "The Idea Trophy competition proves to us every year that we have a reservoir of high quality talent waiting to be groomed in this region. The level of passion, determination and creativity demonstrated by all teams has been extraordinary."

Participating teams of The Idea Trophy competition has had to go through four phases including; idea generation and online submission, business and implementation plan submission, execution and presentations during the Grand Finale phase.

"The Unilever Idea trophy was an extremely exciting challenge that helped us put the theory we study in class, to practice. It is definitely an experience of a lifetime and one that can never be forgotten. We are extremely thankful to Unilever for this opportunity and hope that we have more events like this one which would help us students prepare for the real work world," said Henna Mohnani, team leader of the winning team, Blue Dots.

The Idea Trophy competition is one of many activities that Unilever holds across universities in our region. These activities are held to strengthen Unilever's engagement with the students, provide them with the right educational and professional programs, bridge the gap between the academic and real world and finally, inspire them to become great future business leaders.