Creative Shock is a global social business case competition for students which first took place in 2011. Participants every year are gathered to solve finance, marketing, PR and strategy problems for social businesses. By organizing this competition, we seek to introduce students to real-life global social business models and to communicate how all traditional business strategies can be applied to social enterprises and organizations, improve students’ strategic thinking by challenging them with real marketing and management problems, promote social business all around the world.
Participants have to solve two social business cases in the preliminary rounds. The best 10 teams gather in Vilnius, Lithuania to solve the two final cases.
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Creative Shock is an international social business case competition organized every year since 2011, by the students of the ISM University of Management and Economics.
The growth of the ninth time organized competition is reflected
by the graphs given bellow. In 2019, Creative Shock gathered
1803 students from 101 countries around the globe.
The winners of Creative Shock 2019 are Bachelor students "Shock and Roll" from University of Toronto. Second place winners "Chinja Consulting" come from Thammasat University, the third place is taken by "McGill Titans", a team from McGill University in Canada.
The best ten teams reach the Finals where they compete for valuable prizes. The winning team gets 2000 EUR grand prize.
"It was great to be part of Creative Shock, speaking and sharing our story to a new generation of socially conscious future business leaders from all over the world. Being part of the Jury as well, let me see upfront the variants in creative solutions the teams came up with, no idea was a bad idea and it made it really hard to pick winners. Creative Shock was a really inspiring event to be apart of, and hope it continues its success long into the future!. The world today needs more ideas like Creative Shock!" Josh Turner Founder and CEO of Stand4 Ventures
At all times students were that part of the society which fostered the biggest social changes or sometimes even set off the fire of revolution. “Creative Shock” educates a young person in many ways, develops his critical thinking, strengthens social responsibility. This is why, I believe, this competition not only increases the awareness of social business, creates innovative solutions for social problems, unites youth of the world, but most importantly – plays a big role in terms of creating a responsible society. Justas Kučinskas Member of the Board of ARVI Enterprises Group
It’s already more than three years of my collaboration with ISM students who annually organize social entrepreneurship competition “Creative Shock”. I am glad that during those years the competition has been constantly improving in terms of the number of participants and countries as well as the quality of the jury. Students of ISM play a really important role – they are promoting social innovations and business among young people which is extremely important for Lithuania and neighbor countries because these countries don’t have strong traditions in the field of social business. Mindaugas Danys Innovation manager-consultant at Sunrise valley
The combination of inspirational speakers and challenging cases, coupled with a pitching competition, move young people along the continuum from inspiration, understanding and action. They combine an international dimension and practical activity very effectively. I have been working with social business for 14 years and been involved in many entrepreneurship competitions in the UK, Lithuania, Latvia, South Korea and the Philippines and Creative Shock is excellent – clearly one of the best. Phil Tulba Director and Vice Chairman Adrenaline Alley UK
The first day begins with an opening ceremony of the final weekend and welcoming words for TOP 10 teams. After that, the participants are involved in activities meant to get them acquainted with each other. In the evening, the teams improve their creativity and communication skills in a creative workshop. Afterwards, they attend a live music event.
The second day is dedicated to deepen participants’ knowledge about the concept of social business through workshops and discussions. At the end of the day all teams participate in the Cultural Evening, where they present their countries and have a chance to find out about other cultures’ traditions.
The third day begins with the Social Business Conference. Open lectures are held for the finalists and the public. International and local speakers share their ideas and thoughts on global business trends and social entrepreneurship. During the second part of the day, the teams are introduced to the Final Case study. The teams have only one night to provide their solutions and present them the next day to the jury of social entrepreneurs and business experts.
During the final day of the competition teams present their solutions of the Final Case study. After announcing and awarding the winners, the Networking event is held where the teams, jury, partners and social organizations share their impressions about the final weekend.