Henkel's international student competition kicks off across GCC

Wanted: Enthusiastic students, visionary ideas and compelling concepts

Dubai: Coinciding with the start of the new academic year, Henkel's international student competition – the Henkel Innovation Challenge – kicks off once again. For the seventh time, Henkel calls on students from all over the world to submit their visionary ideas and concepts for new Henkel products and technologies.

Under the slogan – “Create, Learn, Grow.” student teams from the GCC have been invited to submit their innovative and sustainable ideas by December 11, 2013 on www.henkelchallenge.com. Developing a visionary product or a new technology for one of the three Henkel business sectors Beauty Care, Laundry & Home Care or Adhesive Technologies is the main aim of the Henkel Innovation Challenge.

Registering in teams of two, students from a wide variety of disciplines will adopt the role of creative, sustainability-aware business development managers. Throughout the competition, Henkel will provide extensive support: once they have registered, each team will be given access to professional e-learning programs that are also part of Henkel's internal Learning Management.

All teams that qualify for the semifinal are assigned an experienced Henkel manager, who acts as a mentor, advising the participants on further developing their innovative concepts. This allows the young visionaries to gain priceless, wide-ranging business experience and a detailed insight into the company. At the same time, the students have the opportunity to establish an invaluable personal contact with managers at Henkel.

“The Henkel Innovation Challenge allows us to meet top talents from the GCC, who get into the role of a business development manager and work closely with Henkel managers to come up with innovative ideas in line with our vision. Through Henkel Innovation Challenge, we offer students the possibility to translate theoretical knowledge into practice and gain valuable business experience. This challenge also offers the students to compete with the best talents from across the globe and to showcase their creativity and innovation,” said Ralph Branderhorst Head of Human Resources at Henkel GCC

The top three teams of the seventh Henkel Innovation Challenge will be invited to attend a personal meeting with Henkel CEO, Kasper Rorsted. In addition to this, the overall winners will receive an around-the-world-ticket with a value of 10,000 Euros, the runners-up will receive 4,000 Euros and the team that comes third will receive 2,000 Euros.

The Henkel Innovation Challenge is open to students of all subjects, whether economics, engineering or the natural sciences. This year, teams from 30 different countries are invited to take part in the competition. Students who are interested in the international competition can get an initial idea of what it's all about on www.henkelchallenge.com and on the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/henkelchallenge. Videos from previous years can be found on YouTube.

About Henkel: Henkel operates worldwide with leading brands and technologies in three business areas:
Laundry & Home Care, Beauty Care and Adhesive Technologies. Founded in 1876, Henkel holds globally leading market positions both in the consumer and industrial businesses with well-known brands such as Persil, Schwarzkopf and Loctite. Henkel employs about 47,000 people and reported sales of 16,510 million euros and adjusted operating profit of 2,335 million euros in fiscal 2012. Henkel's preferred shares are listed in the German stock index DAX.

Further information on recruitment and careers at Henkel can be found at www.henkel.com/careers.