by: Eliane Alhadeff
DELOITTE & TOUCHE USA HAS partnered with BrandGames to bring business education up to speed, with The Virtual Team Challenge for High Schools (VTCHS) Event–an online simulator that lets teens learn business best practices and deal with real-world ethical and financial situations.
On average, students will spend 45 – 90 minutes in the "virtual world". Teachers may allocate time to play during class hours or assign the challenge for homework.
The VTCHS consists of a four-week in-classroom curriculum based on four key professional platforms – Business, Ethics, Money and Decision-Making.The teachers will introduce one of the four content themes at the beginning of each week and the teams will then apply their learning’s to the gaming simulation and competition.
Working in teams of four and competing against groups in their class, school and across the country, participants will act as an event production company staging a community festival to raise money for the United Way.
Deloitte tapped New York-based BrandGames after doing extensive research on ways to make their business prep programs more effective and relevant to the "video game generation."
The VTCHS platform took almost a year to develop, according to Jim Wexler, executive vice president of marketing at BrandGames, including the integration of the lesson plans, compliance with Deloitte branding, as well as the functionality and actual programming.
"Deloitte had a vision for this–and we’ve been helping brands and companies use games as part of both their consumer-facing and internal communications for years, so our toolset was a perfect fit."
