Inaugural MBA Capstone Conference on 17 April a resounding success

Inspired by the Oxford Brookes Business School’s HRM Research Conference, the MBA set out to organise its own version.

The dual purpose of the MBA Capstone Conference was to provide a platform for recent graduates to showcase their projects and for current students to learn from the alumni’s experiences for their own Capstone projects. With over 300 part-time students on the programme, we felt there should be a good audience for this, given how complex, intense and important the Capstone projects are.

Brookes Global MBA students are busy professionals and executives based all over the world who largely study online, so there are some challenges in making something like this work for all. We need not have worried. Despite a short run-up and this being a first, 10 recent alumni were quickly found (very!) willing to talk about their final projects to the MBA Community, and over 120 students, tutors and alumni attended the first (online) MBA Capstone Conference on Saturday 17 April. They were joining us from at least 22 countries (not everybody added their location on Mentimeter), pretty literally spanning the globe: from Australia to Trinidad and Tobago and from Norway to South Africa.

The feedback from both presenters and attendees has been amazing, both within the session and on social media. One of the speakers, for example, posted on LinkedIn: “We shared useful tips, positive thoughts and openness to each other and to those who are preparing their MBA capstone. Knowledge is all about passion! I think it is soooo important to communicate this during and after an MBA journey.” Another presenter wrote “…so many people contacted me after the presentation to tell me that they had really enjoyed what I had to say.”

A short selection of comments from attendees in the Zoom session’s chat:

• “A great opportunity as a new student, to start thinking about and absorbing the experience of others. Thanks to all speakers today. Congratulations on your success.”
• “Current student: great initiative, especially as someone in the middle of writing a dissertation. Hope to keep this up and would be be happy to present in the future.”
• “Thanks everyone, hugely impactful and insightful”
• “Thank you very much - a brilliantly organised, engaging and inspirational event. I'd love to attend another event this year if you end up putting another one on!”

Given the success, we will certainly be making this at least an annual event for the MBA Community. It is a wonderful way of directly enabling connections and knowledge transfer between alumni and current students.