Competition: The Morning

Arrived back at the Convene for an 8am breakfast and meet the judges. We were all a bit tired after the night before finalising everything but we were ready and confident we wouldn't massively embarrass ourselves but also just thinking we would present once and enjoy the rest of our experience. 

We headed out for a walk after breakfast as we were last in our group to go and needed to keep cool heads away from the pressure of the Convene and all the other teams who were anxiously waiting- so we stopped and took a team photo by the Brooklyn Bridge- on Facebook it's been said we look like something out of the Apprentice.

Back at The Convene, time to present to a panel of 4 judges- big thanks again to all the judges for taking time out of their incredibly busy work schedules to come and judge the competition. The judges are all senior real estate individuals from all different areas of real estate from research to development plus everything in between. So in we walked to our room, shook hands with the judges and introduced ourselves and then we began what we've been building up to for the last 5 days.

We were all slightly nervous presenting but 15 minutes isn't long and we slightly misjudged timing resulting in missing the conclusion out- luckily due to the nature of the remit- we had stated our conclusion- to invest & develop- at the beginning and justified it throughout the presentation from all our financial and market analysis. 

Presentation over, it was time for Q and A's....always feels a little gruelling but the questions were things we had prepared but been unable to cover plus a couple seeking clarity over financials. The judges final words to us were 'Great Job'- we weren't sure if they were just saying that to everyone! 

Brief wait for our judges feedback- incredibly helpful constructive criticism which we took on board and made mental notes of for next years team paired nicely with lots of praise for our presentation and approach to the case study. Fabiana, the only female judge, was obviously loving that we were 4 women and 1 man all the other teams were male dominated.

Lunch and official photos followed this before the announcement of the finalists. - Hannah