SJIM-Albers International Business Plan Competition
10th SJIM-Albers International B-Plan Competition
It is 2026 and we have been living with social media platforms for 22 years and modern-era mass (public) artificial intelligence tools for around 4 years. Both innovations have been major breakthroughs and most influential in the way they help the world interact. However, despite both technologies’ vast potential, the world is actually no better than before them, with less than 35% of the UN SDGs being on track for success. At the same time, the unit of community considered for tracking humanity’s progress is moving from the individual to the family. When we do so, the progress made towards improvement of families is even more dismal – less than 16% of related SDG targets are on track. Somehow the two most socially revolutionary technologies – social media and artificial intelligence – have so far failed to improve our future. Can you combine and leverage the power of social media and artificial intelligence in a way that improves lives?
Would you like to take part in a competition that is trying to find a scalable solution that leverages the combined power of social media and artificial intelligence to improve the lives of families?
Would you like to collaborate across continents on this impactful assignment?
St. Joseph’s Institute of Management (SJIM, India) and the Albers School of
Business (Seattle University, USA) invite you to join hands with students at Albers and SJIM to create the best business plan to solve this crucial problem.
You will be part of a virtual team, collaborating and harnessing different countries’ technical and social expertise towards this critical global issue.
The business plans of all participating teams will be judged by prominent and successful jury members from across the globe. Three finalist teams will get to present and debate their case in front of a distinguished panel at Albers or SJIM, either in-person or virtually.
So join us today to win this unique multi-school multi-nation b-plan competition!
Competition Topic
Social media platforms (like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok, and others) had their initiation into the public around the year 2004, growing steadily to achieve today’s numbers of around 3 billion monthly active users each on WhatsApp and Facebook, 2 billion monthly active users each on Instagram and Tiktok, and other platforms following close behind. Given that our planet’s population is around 8 billion with about 2 billion below the age of 13, that means that almost half of humanity is using social media as of today. Such influential technology connecting so many people for so long should have had a significant impact on societies. Unfortunately, however, it does not seem to have added value to life over the last two decades. It is true that business growth for brands, advertising, startup culture, the rise of influencers, advocacy, and so on have certainly benefitted from the existence of social media. But where has that impact spilled over to the 3 billion that are using these platforms, or the remaining 5 billion who are not on these platforms? Using the Millenium Development Goals and thereafter the Sustainable Development Goals as a benchmark, we see no effect, or sometimes even a negative effect, of social media (The Wall Street Journal, 2021; The Guardian, 2023).
Similarly, the last few years have seen the meteoric rise of the use of artificial intelligence in everything. It has very quickly been put to use to improve productivity in the workplace, for entertainment, and so on. In fact, the pace of progress has been so fast that governments and civil society are struggling to catch up with guardrails for such systems that are currently running with almost no restrictions, including severe ecological destruction through its data centers across the globe (Bloomberg, 2025; The Wall Street Journal, 2024). Did you know that a 100-line response from an AI tool consumes about 500ml of water? Or that corporate giants like Microsoft and Google have increased their carbon footprint by almost 50% since 2019 due to their data centers? (The Washinton Post, 2024; The New York Times, 2024). Yet, despite its mounting negative environmental impact, the use of AI remains unbridled because of the productivity advantages it provides in all types of work, entertainment, accessibility, and more.
Through all this Pope Leo XIV issued his first encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” (or "Magnificent Humanity") in 2026 emphasizing the importance of placing our humanity over the efficiency we gain through AI, providing a much-needed moral framework in this ever-changing AI era. While not disregarding AI’s importance in our future, he brings to our attention the need for human (not corporate) stewardship and responsibility during the major technological shift that we are currently experiencing. During the last year, he also addressed the need for governments and businesses to focus on families as they are the primary foundations of society, “a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society”. This exhortation is not without reason as today’s working conditions and laws are disrupting these foundations. Currently, there are over 300 million transnational workers in the world today who work away from their family in order to send money home to their family, resulting in a disrupted family life for the members of the family. For example, over 10% of the Filipino population are working outside their country, away from their families; in India, that number has grown to over 32 million people. In USA and Europe it is estimated that over 50% of grandparents have minimal interaction with their children and grandchildren due to nuclear family structures (which constitute about a third of all types of families in the world today), transnational work, extensive urban migrations, and so on.
It is fairly obvious from the path history of the growth of social media, and now that of artificial intelligence, that purely profit-seeking organizations are more concerned about shareholder wealth rather than the betterment of society. The recent landmark case that Meta settled with several states of the US for $17 billion is evidence to that.
Therefore, we need social entrepreneurships that have both a profit-seeking objective and a social objective, led by young people who have grown alongside both social media and AI, to lead the charge towards a better future leveraging these very same technologies. Can you develop a scalable business model for this purpose? Think beyond just video chats, quick AI-generated answers, and reels. Think of how your solution can truly have an impact. Can you make a real difference using your business acumen and leveraging the inter-disciplinary and international nature of your team?
Working in international virtual teams, can you develop a financially sustainable and practically implementable and scalable solution for leveraging the power of social media and artificial intelligence to improving the lives of families?
Remember, you can tackle this problem from any angle and with whatever extent of technicality you wish. Your business idea can cater to the situation either in the country you are from, or it can be at the global level too.
Competition Demands
While this competition is co-hosted by St. Joseph’s Institute of Management (SJIM, India) and the Albers School of Business and Economics (Seattle University, USA), the students of all courses/departments/programs from any participating school are eligible to join.
The only infrastructure you need is an internet connection! After registration, all students will be assigned to teams. Ideally, each team will be comprised of a minimum of one or two students from each country/school. However, team sizes might vary based on the registrations.
Teams will meet during 2 mandatory virtual meetings to discuss their business plans. There will be short gaps of a few days between these meetings to allow for asynchronous work. Finally, each team will have to submit a 7–10-page business plan for the first round of judging by the international jury. Thus, the demand on each individual’s time may be around 3 hours a week, over a two-week period.
For the first round, the business plan should be submitted in a doc/docx/pdf format. All submissions will be passed through anti-plagiarism software. The document should use Times New Roman 12-point font with 1-inch margins all round. The length of the document must be a maximum of 10 pages, excluding any appendices. Judges will read, but not evaluate, any appendices. The required structure of the business plan is below.
Cover page, which includes the name of the proposed company and the names of the team members.
The Idea: one page dedicated to explaining the idea (or your solution) in brief.
The People: The men and women who will be starting and running the venture, their roles, details about any outside parties providing key services or important resources, and so on.
The Opportunity: A profile of the business itself – what it will sell and to whom, whether the business can grow and how fast, what its economics are, who and what stand in the way of success.
The Context: The bigger picture – the regulatory environment, demographic trends, technological trends and developments, and any other factor that will inevitably change but cannot be controlled by you (the entrepreneur). How will you be prepared to deal with the inevitable change in the environment?
Risk and Reward: An assessment of everything that can go wrong and right, and a discussion of how the entrepreneurial team can respond. Financials, like break-even analyses, can be included here.
Appendices, if any.
The structure listed above is adapted from an article by William Sahlman, Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration (Emeritus) at Harvard Business School. All teams are encouraged to read this short article, which is available by clicking here
For the final round, the business plan should be submitted in a ppt/pptx format. The structure of the presentation will follow the broad structure of the written plan. Each team will have 15 minutes to present their plan. After all teams have presented their plan, the judges will give each team a set of questions to answer. All teams will get 20 minutes to discuss between themselves, including with overseas team members via the internet. Thereafter, the teams will have to give their response to the judges.
Competition Judges
For the First Round:
For the first round of this competition, we have judges from across the globe who are experts on this year’s competition topic. This multi-member panel of judges will shortlist the three best business plans for the final.
(the list of judges will appear here soon)
For the Final Round:
The final round will involve finalists presenting their b-plans to a multi-member panel of judges from America or India, depending on the location of the final round. Each of these judges will bring their expertise to bear at this competition. At the end of this round, the best business plan will be chosen.
(the list of judges will appear here soon)
28 Sep 2026
Registration opens.
06 Oct 2026
Registration closes.
16 Oct 2026
Teams will be announced.
24 Nov 2026
All teams must submit a softcopy of their b-plans.
20 Jan 2027 (tentative)
Announcement of the THREE finalist teams on the competition webpage.
27 Jan 2027 (tentative)
All finalist teams must submit their presentation.
09 Feb 2027 (tentative)
Live presentation by the finalist teams to a panel of judges.
Please register by filling up this form: https://forms.gle/FLuiPt3BKC3Ar2kG7. You will then receive an email by 16 Oct 2026, informing you of your team members.
Regis University students: please contact Prof. Ken Sagendorf (ksagendorf@regis.edu) if you have any concerns or issues.
ITESO students: please contact Ms. Pilar (mplopez@iteso.mx) if you have any concerns or issues.
Fu Jen University students: please contact Mr. Curtis Chen (fj03713@mail.fju.edu.tw) if you have any concerns or issues.
Albers/SU students: please contact Ms. Amelia Marckworth (marckwor@seattleu.edu) if you have any concerns or issues.
SJIM / SJCC / SJCL / SJU students: please contact Dr. Caren Rodrigues (caren@sjim.edu.in) or Dr. Anup Krishnamurthy (anup@sjim.edu.in) if you have any concerns or issues.
