"What's the scoop on the other teams?"

Ericsson Buneos Aires did try to bribe me with a little something something... they used a very old fashioned trick "you give me something, I'll give you something in return". So, they did try to force me to reveal which teams have finished. My lips were sealed, "I can't tell you, my code of honour will be destroyed", Ericsson Buenos Aires "oh come on... the other teams are done right?"

"Millions more time"

Ericsson Montreal's - when I entered the room, the team uttered, "we wished we had millions more time" is also the team that is counting its blessings along the way. Their goal at this point is to "make it to the second round". And the team's just thrilled of the idea of speaking with the CEO, CFO and executives of Ericsson because without this competition, this team may not have a chance of being able to get "direct access to the top management of Ericsson".

Private Email

As I scanned Ericsson Madrid's projection on the screen, the topic wasn't about Ericsson, it wasn't about Ericsson's competitors, it wasn't even remotely anything related to this competition. They were replying emails to: "anybody up for a game in the park?".

On a totally seperate note, when asked how certain they were about leaving the building to get some shut-eye, they couldn't give me a straight answer. "We are uncertain about tomorrow, uncertain about 2020, but we are most certain about being extremely drunk after 7pm tomorrow". Their challenge to the rest of the other teams - an entirely non-academic booze competition starting at 7pm.

Post Pizza

As midnight approaches, teams are getting their fill of pizza and energy drinks. Dean Chalykoff was here in the grad lounge to chat them up. I got a chance to ask them what they thought of the case and a lot of them admitted they were stumped. Despite that, many of the teams are hopeful of a few hours of sleep.
For those of you who haven't had your fill yet, we have plenty of pizza at the grad lounge, a couple of cookies (yeah, they went fast) and some rice crispies. If you need your spirits lifted at 3AM, go find your friendly(?) volunteer on night-shift.

Organizing Committee

Cast your votes for the Organizing Committee...

1. Who is the most annoying volunteer?

2. Who is the nicest?

3. Who is the volunteer that doesn't do any work?

The most diplomatic team

Ericsson Sao Paolo is by far the team to have said anything nice about the other teams. We "think everyone is smart and will have a similar formula for the judges". Blogger: "But don't you think the subject is too broad for that to be even possible?". Ericsson Sao Paolo: "Well, there is a reason why we all came to this stage right?"

"No pizza without drama"

So the committee chair wants me to announce that "there won't be any pizza for teams not providing drama for the blog"

"We don't know about our energy levels"

Ericsson Bangalore - was the deadliest room I entered. At 9pm, they all seemed like they didn't want to talk to each other. I was unable to decipher the communication, the team members were all speaking in some native language. On second thoughts, maybe that was intentional. One of the issues that they were struggling with were the lack of information and concrete evidence.

Midnight Train

Ericsson Nanjing's plan is to potentially leave the building at midnight. According to the team, they are "almost done" and apparently had time to think about changing the competition rules for next year. Ericsson Nanjing wants the case comp rules to permit "dogs and other living creatures" to help encourage creativity. Mooky had to leave.

Cookies for dinner

"So we are on the 5th wind" - energy levels. Blogger: "umm.. did you guys have dinner yet?" Ericsson Rome: (turns to another team member, slightly confused at the question): "umm.... did we have dinner yet?" Another Ericsson Rome team member "do cookies count?"

Ericsson Rome suffered a slight malfunction with the doors, the doors wouldn't shut and had to call facility maintainence to fix them. Ericsson Rome "we are maintaining secrecy, hence the drama with maintainence".