From registration to presentation: what it takes to build a winning solution

Once you're registered, get your team connected

Registration is just the first click. What you do right after is what actually gets your team working — and the next step looks different depending on whether you registered as a team leader or a team member.

If you registered as a team leader:

If you registered as a team member:

One thing is the same for both roles: whether you're leading the team or joining it, you're expected to read and understand the brief yourself, once, before the group gets together.

Start the work before your team is even full

You don't need all 25 members in the group before you start. The earlier your team begins talking about the brief, the more time you'll have to actually build a strong solution.

• Team leaders should push to start immediately — even with just a handful of members in the group, begin brainstorming the brief with whoever is already there.
• Late joiners catch up as they arrive — nobody needs to hold the group back waiting for the last few registrations to come in.
• Every day spent waiting is a day not spent working — the sooner discussion starts, the more time is left to actually build the solution before the deadline.

A team that starts talking about the brief on day one — even half-formed — is always ahead of a team that waits until everyone has joined.

Read the brief before your first meeting

Every participant should walk into the first team meeting with their own understanding of the brief already formed, not hear it explained for the first time in the group.

• Read the challenge brief fully, on your own, before any group discussion happens.
• Use any AI tool to help you understand it — paste in the brief and ask it to break down what's actually being asked. This is the fastest way to get a clear picture before the team gets together.
• Form your own understanding first. Everyone will read it a little differently — that's fine, and actually useful once the team compares notes.
• Bring that understanding to the first meeting instead of skimming the brief for the first time while everyone else is talking.

This one step — everyone doing their own reading and AI-assisted breakdown beforehand — is what makes the first team meeting actually productive instead of everyone re-reading the brief out loud together.

Introductions before ideas, then divide the work

Before anyone starts brainstorming, spend the first team meeting simply getting to know each other.

Go around and have everyone share their strengths and interests — anything relevant to solving the brief. Then let each person share how they understood the brief on their own. Listening to a teammate's take is often the fastest way to catch something you missed in your own reading.

Once introductions are done, split the work based on what people are actually good at. A team of 25 only works if it divides into smaller groups, each one owning a different part of the solution — here's what each of the six focus areas actually does:

Winning teams don't have one group that "does the real work" while the rest just add their name to a slide. Every one shapes the final answer.

Talk to each other, constantly

The six focus areas don't work in isolation, and they don't work in a straight line either. What actually keeps a team of 25 moving in the same direction is simple: constant discussion and cooperation.

Regular meetings and regular messages between members — across every focus area, not just within your own group — are what keep everyone on the same page. Research needs to know what strategy is deciding. Strategy needs to know what feasibility is finding. Creative and presentation need to know what's actually been agreed on before they start building the story around it.

A team that talks constantly catches problems early and stays aligned right up to presentation day. A team that only checks in once a week ends up with six groups that don't fully understand what everyone else is doing.

What judges are actually looking for

Here's the detail that changes how a lot of teams prepare, once it actually sinks in: your judges are evaluating your solution against the jury criteria for the challenge. They're also the industry professionals behind the brief, so the most important question is whether your answer is something the business could actually use.

Remember — the rubric matters, but so does the real-world test: would the company actually use the answer you are presenting?

That single shift in mindset — from "will this impress them" to "would this actually work for them" — is often the real difference between a good pitch and a winning one.

Presentation day: making every minute count

By the time you're presenting, the thinking is mostly done — what's left is making sure it lands. Every track runs a morning and an afternoon challenge, with one industry partner leading each session. Check your track brief so you know which partner is evaluating your challenge and what they are looking for.

• Open with the answer, not the agenda. Judges have sat through enough "today we'll cover" slides. Lead with your recommendation, then justify it.
• Know your numbers cold. If finance built the model, at least two other people on the team should be able to explain it without looking at a slide.
• Let more than one voice present. A single spokesperson reciting a script someone else wrote reads exactly like what it is. Judges notice when a team actually built something together.
• Treat Q&A as a conversation, not an interrogation. "That's a great question, here's how we thought about it" beats a defensive scramble every time.

Your first sentence and your last slide are what they remember. Make both count.

None of this replaces a strong solution. But two teams with equally strong answers don't get equally strong outcomes — the one that communicates with clarity and confidence usually wins the room.

Registration to presentation, it's the same six steps every time. What you do with them is what makes the difference.

Lastly, don't forget to bring your confidence, your smile, and your enthusiasm to show off everything you've worked on all this time.