GCU students only UK group to reach final of global construction competition

A team of GCU students have successfully made it to the final of a global competition organised by the Chartered Institute of Building – the only University in the UK to do so!

The CIOB Global Student Challenge is an annual competition run by the Chartered Institute of Building that provides built environment students with an opportunity to apply their learning to a real-world scenario of running their own virtual construction company.

There were 48 teams competing in the challenge, with the top six institutions getting to send their best team to the finals. Out of the top 10 institutions, GCU is the only UK university to qualify into the competition.

Two teams from GCU entered and performed well in the challenge, with both teams making it to the final 10. Team “Glasgow Construction Corp.” successfully made it to the finals which was set to be held in Sydney in the summer. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the finals are now going to be held remotely between the 22nd and 26th of June.

The final team consisted of four students, including Jahanzab Khalid, Ross Campbell, Abdullah Ahmad and Scott Pews from the Environmental Civil Engineering and Building Services Engineering programmes. The students had six weeks to complete the challenge, and successfully completed it despite the complications of COVID-19.

Fourth year Environmental Civil Engineering student Jahanzan Khalid was very proud to have made it to this stage of the competition. He said: “I feel extremely delighted to have made it to the final of such a globally recognised competition.

It has been a challenging, yet extremely rewarding journey to have made it this far. Although, it would not have been possible without the efforts and hard work of every individual in the team and for that, I am proud of everyone.

We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us and hopefully we can win this competition like other GCU teams have done in the past.”

Jahanzad has put the team’s success due to the equal contributions of each team member. He said: “I took a ‘Financial Directors Role’ within the team, this meant overseeing all financial decisions within the game.

However, the dynamics of the team were as such that everyone was contributing 100% to all aspects and helping each, which eliminated the need for a ‘team leader’ role.”

He added: “I would highly recommend students in all years across the university to engage in competitions like this, when the opportunity arises.

It has been highly beneficial and we have all learned a lot, picked up new skills and it has been an enjoyable experience.”

To find out more about the Global Student Challenge, click here

By Rachael McAlonan

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