Alibaba Challenges Students to Create Solutions for a Post Covid-19 World

GET Network to judge and fund six winning teams from 13 markets

Innovative students from across 13 markets who want to help the world and be rewarded for their ingenuity will now have the chance.

Alibaba Business School has announced the launch of Alibaba Global E-Commerce Talent (GET) Global Challenge 2020, aimed squarely at helping businesses and organizations worldwide recover faster and rebound stronger in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The competition will empower the next generation of entrepreneurial talents to contribute by creating transformative digital solutions in collaboration with mentors and partners from the Alibaba network.

Targeted at university and higher education institution students from 13 markets including the African continent, China, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand and Uzbekistan, the competition will be conducted virtually and span four phases, starting this month. A minimum of 100 teams, each comprising three to five members, are expected to compete. Following national finals that will take place between June and August, over 30 teams will face off virtually in the World Finals from August 17 to 25, 2020.

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“The pandemic is fast-becoming a generation-defining moment, especially for the incoming class of talents. We have collectively risen to the occasion with digital tools invented and repurposed to limit and mitigate the difficulties faced, and there is no better time to get our future talents to lend their creativity and digital savviness in helping the world to recover,” said Zhang Yu, Alibaba Group Partner and Vice President. “We have seen examples of how digital transformation can play a key role in reducing day-to-day struggles, improving work productivity and quality of life. We hope the challenge will spur the creation of even more life-changing solutions not just for now, but for the future as well.”

Teams submitting their business proposals will receive coaching and reference materials based on modern case studies and learning assets via Alibaba’s DingTalk live streaming sessions. These will be conducted by GET Network-certified experts and Alibaba-trained managers and eFounders, who are regular instructors for Alibaba Business School’s various existing digital training programs. Participants will have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge on digital economy topics ranging from digital transformation, customer-centricity, start-up landscape to pitching for investment and more. The top six teams who qualify for the world finals will also receive one-on-one coaching sessions.

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The teams will be judged on the innovativeness of their proposal, ability to solve real-world problems, as well as the feasibility, sustainability, and scalability of their new ventures. The final six teams will receive two additional benefits in the form of business funding by Alibaba and the eligibility to join the global GET talent bank, which will provide even more support for their business endeavors. The winning team will also be granted a fully sponsored digital economy discovery trip to Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, including exclusive sessions with Alibaba GET Network trainers.

The Alibaba GET Network was initiated in 2018 as an extension of Alibaba’s GET program which, to date, has benefitted 80 education partners and trained more than 300 lecturers and over 13,000 students and other participants from Australia, India, Israel, Mongolia, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, South Korea, Singapore and China.