Management Practice Hackathon

The Management Practice Hackathon is the second Action Learning component of the EM Certificate and is completed by participants in the spring of their first year. It is an innovative competition that enables students to integrate the lessons they’ve learned in the classroom with their business experience to help companies solve their most pressing interdisciplinary challenges.

Collaborating with EM Certificate students on cross-functional problems, host companies gain access to talented system thinkers and contribute to the community by providing critical experiences necessary for developing seasoned professionals. Participating students benefit from real-world experience in a tightly scoped, fast-paced, and exciting four-day competition. The Management Practice Hackathon pits three to four student teams against each other as they compete to solve marketing, operations, or strategy problems. They then present their recommendations to a panel of judges. The goal of the competition—and of the EM Certificate as a whole—is to encourage students to stretch their thinking beyond functional silos to design the best solution to the problem at hand.