Victory at the I-CEE 2026 International Case Competition in Beijing

Our GTK students have achieved another outstanding international success: a team composed of students from Babeș–Bolyai University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Rotterdam Business School won first place at the I-CEE Student Case Contest 2026, an international case competition organized by Beijing Foreign Studies University. The final round of the competition took place on September 5, 2026.

Since its launch in 2021, the competition has brought together more than 1,000 students representing over 110 universities and 45 countries. One of the distinctive features of the competition is that each team had to include students from at least two different countries or two different universities.

The competition consisted of two rounds. In the first stage, teams were required to prepare a 3,000–5,000-word business case study. The teams with the strongest submissions advanced to the final round, where they presented their solutions online and answered questions from a professional jury.

Three of our GTK students — Emese Imre-Madarász, Gergely Kacsó and István Sándor — represented Babeș–Bolyai University in the winning international team. Emese and Gergely are first-year Finance and Banking students, while István is a first-year Business Information Systems student.

The international team was coordinated on behalf of BBU by Dr. Levente Szász, while Dr. Mark Crowder represented Manchester Metropolitan University and Dr. Hans Van Oudheusden represented Rotterdam Business School. The preparation of our GTK students was also supported by Dr. Lehel Györfy and Dr. Béla-Gergely Rácz.

The winning team worked on an international expansion strategy for TopTop, a gaming and social entertainment application developed by the Chinese company MICO WORLD. The students were required to identify the most suitable European countries for market entry, determine the sequence of expansion, and propose ways to adapt the application’s games, social features and broader ecosystem to local user needs.

Their solution also included a growth strategy, operational recommendations and a detailed budget. Based on their written submission, the team advanced to the top 25 finalists, where they delivered a 20-minute presentation and answered questions from the jury. Their performance was ultimately rewarded with first place.

A total of four international teams of five students each participated in the competition through the collaboration of GTK and Babeș–Bolyai University. In addition to the winning team, our GTK students Zsombor Antonya, Gábor Bukur, Balázs-Krisztián Faluvegi, Péter Gergely, Dániel Jaskó, Ádám Szász-Péter, Blanka Tűzes, Márk Bartha and Kristóf Zolcsák also took part in the competition as members of different international teams.

The team consisting of Emese Imre-Madarász, Raffaela di Napoli, Gergely Kacsó, István Sándor and Jessica Charlesworth advanced to the final and ultimately secured first place in the international field.

We warmly congratulate our GTK students, all members of the winning international team and the academic mentors on this outstanding international achievement. We are proud that our students have once again demonstrated their professional knowledge, teamwork and competitiveness on the international stage.