Each week we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest trending topics from top business schools around the world.

Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of April 22, 2019.

Wharton Unveils New Facilities for Student Entrepreneurship

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania just unveiled plans for Tangen Hall, the first on-campus space dedicated to student entrepreneurship and innovation activities.

Tangen Hall is a seven-story, 68,000-sqft hub developed by the Hankin Group, designed by KSS Architects, and funded by a $25 million gift from the AKO Foundation. Tangen will offer incubator spaces, maker spaces, a test kitchen, a new Venture Lab, and an Integrated Product Design Program operated by Wharton, the School of Engineering, and the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

Tangen Hall, aerial perspective looking Northeast

“Tangen Hall is one of those dreams come true. The real motivator for this is the amazing entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of our undergraduate and graduate students who are working to do great things in the world,” said President Amy Gutmann. “I want to thank Dean Geoff Garrett and Wharton for taking the lead and driving this project forward, bringing the finest of business, engineering, and design together.”

Read the full press release from Wharton here.

Yale Wins MBA Impact Investing Competition Two Times Running

Team members (from left) John Palfreyman ’20, Vincent Caruso ’20, Emma Broderick ’21, and Leah Yablonka FES ’19

For the second year in a row, a team of Yale SOM students took home first place at the MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (MIINT) competition this month.

Starting at Yale five months prior, two MBA students, Susannah Burrage ’19 and Jake Harris ’19, selected five teams from an initial applicant pool of 50. After months of due diligence, research and weekly meetings, the five teams were whittled down to one in a pitch-off. To determine which team would represent Yale at the MIINT competition, judges chose the winners based on which idea had the most potential for strong financial returns and scalable impact.

They chose well.

In Philadelphia at the MIINT competition, Yale competed against teams from 30 other business schools and made it to the finals against teams from Oxford Saïd, Wharton, London Business School, Chicago Booth, and UCLA Anderson. The Yale team, comprised of Vincent Caruso MBA ’20, John Palfreyman MBA ’20, Emma Broderick MBA/MEM ’21, Leah Yablonka MEM ’19, and Martha Deeds EMBA ’20, won with a pitch for a peer-to-peer electric vehicle charging app. The Yale SOM team’s winning design earned them a $5,000 investment in EVmatch.

“Competition was fierce… They had done significant prep work through the diligence process, and it paid off both in the presentation itself and later in the final award deliberations,” said Bo Hopkins ’86, who was the MIINT team’s faculty advisor.

Read the full news story from Yale SOM here.

HBS Student Club Examines “Evolution in Entertainment” through Dynamic Conference

Approximately 300 people attended the Harvard Business School Entertainment & Media Conference on March 31, which drew in over 30 speakers, top entertainment professionals, and MBA students to learn about “Evolution in Entertainment.”

The goal of the conference was to facilitate conversations around key industry trends and provide a setting for professional networking and growth. Industry leaders shared their experiences and insights from film, television, digital, social media, publishing agencies, music, sports, gaming, and other creative sectors.

This year, the following three keynote speakers took an in-depth look at the many forces impacting the future of entertainment and media:

Albert Cheng, COO and Co-Head of TV at Amazon Studios
Gigi Pritzker, CEO of Madison Wells Media
Courtenay Valenti, President of Production and Development at Warner Bros Pictures.

Valenti remarked, “I really enjoyed the experience and found the conversations so interesting. All the students are deeply engaged and dynamic.”

Read the full blog from HBS here.

Cambridge Judge MBA Students Head Abroad for Global Consulting Projects

One of the highlights of the Cambridge Judge MBA is the Global Consulting Project (GCP), which connects four- to five-person teams with real clients to provide recommendations that genuinely impact the organization. Students are expected to practice their strategic and consulting skills, and the project opportunities run across a range of industries, including arts/culture, healthcare, finance, energy and environment, and NGOs. In 2019, Cambridge Judge MBA students are pursuing GCPs in Australia, Cyprus, China, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Ireland, and the U.S.

The MBA Business Development team at CJBS typically finds GCPs, but this year, students determined several of the projects, including the Bridges Fund Management in the UK, Beautiful Destinations in New York, and Sydney Opera House in Australia. No matter the target firm or business issue to be resolved, students apply the new skills they’ve learned in class to build a strong and cohesive team that can complete the detailed project briefs provided by the companies.

Sadia Cuthbert, Head of MBA Business Development and Projects says: “We have offered fantastic project opportunities to our students again this year. The GCP is such an important learning milestone for students, allowing them to apply their knowledge, their ‘softer skills’ and to gain experience in new sectors. Teams are always tested in these high-time pressured situations of real consulting work.”

Learn more on the Cambridge Judge website here.

Berkeley Haas Talks Earth Day

With Earth Day upon us earlier this week, we wanted to highlight related efforts in supporting the environment. The U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business is home to Chou Hall, which just this year became certified as TRUE Platinum Zero Waste. The building was opened in 2017 as a place to recycle and dispose of compostable material, and almost nothing is sent to the landfill with a “pack in, pack out” mentality.

Danner Doud-Martin, the associate director of international business development at Haas and also the leader of the initiative, commented that, initially, it was challenging to get students and faculty on board. People had a lot of questions about the value of the building and how it worked, but now it’s an integral part of campus life and she’s fielding questions from other schools about how to implement such improvements.

It has still been tricky to get down to “zero waste,” particularly considering the café where people can pick up snacks and lunch. Customers are encouraged to bring their own containers and snacks are sold in bulk instead of using plastic packaging. Plus, there are no single-use beverage bottles.

See more about sustainability at Haas in the New York Times.