The day of 10 May was packed with emotion! After collecting our entry badges, our t-shirts and our cafeteria passes (very important — essential, fundamental, critical), we made our way to one of the vast halls of the European Convention Center to kick off this action-packed day of challenges.
The Morpheus Cup kicked off with the "General Knowledge" round: to start the morning, we were treated to a hearty 45-question quiz. Quite substantial, to say the least. Armed with our remote controls, we had 10 seconds to answer multiple-choice questions. On the menu: general knowledge, sci-fi culture, mathematical logic tests, laughter, triumphant "YES!" shouts, exclamations and plenty of "I knew it!!" moments. To be honest, it was quite the ordeal.
To finish, we were challenged on marketing and branding issues through several rounds in a "speed creation, speed thinking" format. The aim was to come up with catchlines, marketing solutions and more in a very short space of time.
During the afternoon, the "Special Challenges" took place:
- Coding Challenge
- Business Challenge
- Marketing Challenge
- Fintech Challenge
- Engineering Challenge
- Design Challenge
- Security Challenge
We took part in the Design Challenge and did not come first. The rankings will be revealed soon, but what we can tell you is that there was some kind of conspiracy. Definitely. The internet connection clearly had it in for us and was not working properly. Unfortunately, we needed it to perform well in that challenge. On top of that, based on our calculations and the practice session we had just put ourselves through right beforehand, we should have won.
No, we are not sore losers. Not entirely. Almost not. Only sometimes.
Unsure whether we had done well in the morning's "General Knowledge" round, and disappointed with our afternoon performance, we decided to tip the odds in our favour by entering one of the "Bonus Challenges". This was a project management challenge run by Cronos Group Luxembourg. We had to put forward an action plan for the creation of a mobile application focused on school education. Guess which team was called up to the microphone for winning that challenge. Team Cawaboumga from Digital Campus Bordeaux. We had a group hug, then recovered our composure in all the emotion, and shook hands.
"Justice prevails after all!"
This adventure was still a great experience overall. If we had to do it again, we would (after working on our English before leaving). On top of that, as students participating in the Morpheus Cup, we had free access to ICT SPRING, an international event focused on IT and digital. A kind of giant "Digital Week" made in Luxembourg. We got to enjoy the showrooms and conferences, including a talk from Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, major names in innovation such as Google Lunar XPRIZE, organisations embracing digital transition like the Novak Djokovic Foundation represented by Jelena Djokovic, and companies already established in the market such as Canal+, Apple, and Best Buy.
If we had to sum up this experience in a hashtag, it would be: #WhereIsTheAfterParty