KUCHING – Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus students taking international business or management courses can greatly benefit from X-Culture, a large-scale learning exercise which allows students from universities around the world to gain valuable first-hand experience in global virtual collaborations.
X-Culture is designed to provide students with an opportunity to work in a global virtual team and complete a project for a real business client. In the process, they get to experience challenges and learn the best practices of international virtual collaboration and business consulting.
Through X-Culture, students collaborate in an international team of six people over a period of two months, involving approximately 20 to 40 combined hours. Each semester, real-life international business challenges are presented by several selected companies. The teams of students choose one of these challenges to research and present their solution in the form of a report.
Apart from developing a business proposal, students will have live webinars with client company owners or Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), where they can learn more about the business and products in addition to receiving feedback on their suggestions. Through the project, students not only gain new and valuable experience and skills but also enhance their resumes and help in launching their successful careers.
All X-Culture participants who successfully complete the project will receive Global Collaboration Experience Certificates, which can assist them in obtaining employment and promotions. Students may also have the opportunity to have their research outcomes published in top-ranked journals, indicating the significant impact of the solutions they have created.
X-Culture participants will also have access to trained coaches, who are recruited from former participants who successfully completed the project. These coaches play an advisory role; assisting teams by providing feedback on their work, pointing out problems and suggesting improvements as well as helping to resolve challenges which teams may face with regard to coordination, leadership, workload distribution and more.
In realising its Horizon 2025 vision, Swinburne’s moon shot for every Swinburne learner to get work experience highlights the university’s commitment towards providing every undergraduate student with work-integrated learning and real industry projects through rich learning experiences – overcoming the boundary between work and study.
Jeffrey Bun, a Bachelor of Business (International Business) student at Swinburne Sarawak, participated in X-Culture in 2020. He was then selected to become both X-Culture coach and senior coach in 2021 and he was also part of the X-Culture administrative team, assisting in the management of the coaching system.
“The experience I’ve gained after participating in X-Culture was very interesting. In the first two weeks of the project, I faced challenges that I would not usually experience in my studies. However, this made me push myself more to look for solutions. I hope that in the future, Swinburne will continue making the programme available to students as it allows students to test themselves working outside their comfort zone,” he said.
Another Bachelor of Business (International Business) student who joined the project, Kaushalya A/P Rajan, said that being a part of X-Culture meant learning the professional cultures of different backgrounds – to look past each other’s countries and realise that no two people have the same train of thought.
Kaushalya A/P Rajan.
“It means learning to synergise during the toughest moments in our personal lives to produce the best possible outcome for the whole team and it is also knowing that someone who is probably asleep on the other end of the planet cares about the same goals as you. That is all it takes to achieve a better version of globalised planet teamwork,” she said.
She said this opportunity to gain practical international experience virtually was particularly crucial during the Covid-19 pandemic, remarking that for some, it was a break from assessments and projects while being locked away from physical interactions amidst the pandemic, whereas for others, it was an advantage towards their academic pursuits.
“Imagine being able to work with a real-life international client, using everything you’ve learnt to effectively analyse them and providing real-life solutions to their problems. That’s the International Business dream right there! The cherry on the top was that I was backed by a team that was the epitome of diversity in every possible sense you could imagine,” said Kaushalya.
Swinburne Sarawak students who are interested in taking part in X-Culture can contact Dr Symeon Mandrinos, lecturer at Swinburne Sarawak’s School of Business, at smandrinos@swinburne.edu.my or +6082-260767. Students can join the upcoming rounds in January or February 2023 (subject to slight changes), or find out which dates would be suitable for them. Further details on X-Culture can be found at https://x-culture.org/.
For more information on Swinburne Sarawak, visit its website (www.swinburne.edu.my), Facebook page (@swinburnesarawak), Instagram (@swinburnesarawak), Twitter page (@Swinburne_Swk) or YouTube channel (Swinburne Sarawak).