“Decarbonauts” Triumph: Goizueta’s Victory at Rice University Case Competition Propels Sustainable Solutions
The Rice University Case Competition is a student-led case competition centered around decarbonization and clean technology investment, hosted by the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. As a VP and member of the Goizueta Energy and Clean Tech Association, I was thrilled to continue the legacy of the Class of 2023 (Ryan Murray, Evan Scott, Glenn Welch, Peter Danis, and Margot Merwin) and bring home another comically large check for Goizueta Business School.
Our incredibly talented team (Cameron Bard, Mel Bethune, Valeria Robles, Eike Hoffmann, and I) set out as “The Decarbonauts” to tackle this year’s case prompt: investigate solutions for emissions reduction and decarbonization for these industries: iron and steel production, chemical manufacturing, cement production, and oil & gas: petroleum refining, LNG production, and oil field services—traditionally challenging industries to decarbonize. We split off, with each member exploring potential solutions for a specific industry. Increasingly, however, we found that the solutions we pitched to each other were incremental ones, but there was a more impactful problem we could solve that scaled across all the industries: decarbonizing the fuel inputs. We settled on our idea of replacing fuel inputs with hydrogen, and through many weekend meetings and “locking” ourselves in the library, we settled on pitching an investment for Hycamite, a Finnish-based proprietary methane pyrolysis technology innovator that provides its industrial clients with low-carbon hydrogen and sustainable carbon products for demanding applications.
Our research was split into six parts: an overview of emissions in the industrial sector, a deep dive into the hydrogen technology options, an overview of Hycamite and a competitor analysis, carbon reduction analysis, public policy (USA and EU), financial impacts and returns, and implementation and investing next steps. With a very thorough deck, our team placed in the top five—securing our spot to present in Houston! We leaned on our faculty—Rynee Dye, Brian Goebel, and Brian Cayce—to polish our story and stress-test us with demanding questions. Our judges at RCIC were going to be industry professionals with an incredible amount of in-depth knowledge, investors in the competitor companies we had benchmarked against, and VC/PE professionals.
We flew out to Houston as prepared as we could be! The day of the presentation, we were slated to go fourth. We spent the morning preparing, drinking coffee, waiting for Cameron to join us as his flight was delayed, drinking more coffee, and quizzing each other. Each presentation was limited to 25 minutes with a 15-minute Q&A. After lunch, we headed into the auditorium and presented. We fielded some incredibly tough questions about our technology from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, financial projections from a VC/PE firm, and scalability concerns. We stayed confident, backed each other up, and ended smoothly.
After everyone had presented, Rice hosted a happy hour reception with the other schools and judges. I spent a lot of time learning from the other schools (Yale, Rutgers, Rice, and UVA) what their pitches were and making new friends as we headed out into town! The next day at the Rice Energy Finance Summit (REFS), all the teams lined up for the announcement of the winners, and we were announced as 1st place winners! Excited and thankful, we headed up to the podium, collected our giant check, and congratulated our new friends on their hard work. Sadly, we couldn’t take the check home with us to display in the Program Office, but we got many silly photos.
The work was incredibly challenging, and I had to research and push my own limits to solve this seemingly impossible problem, but I learned a lot about the innovative solutions the industries are working towards. Our team is incredibly passionate about working towards a more sustainable and equitable future, and we had each other’s backs the whole time. I am super thankful we were able to represent Goizueta Business School at a national case competition, place first, and uphold a tradition!
Interested in exploring Full-Time MBA opportunities? Learn more about Goizueta’s Full-Time MBA program.
