News

Harvard Projects Win elBulli Foundation Competition

29 Jun 2012

Ferrán Adrià’s Dream Moves One Step Closer

This week in Barcelona, a jury that included Nobel Prize Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz, announced the winners of the Ideas for Transformation competition.

In a surprise move, the top prize was jointly awarded to the two Harvard Business School projects: Duende and Team A, thanks to their complementary nature and the fact that together they captured the spirit of Adrià’s elBulli Foundation, a non-profit ‘think tank’ conceptualized under the motto “Freedom to Create”. Each of the winning team members will receive a 10,000 Euro cash award, while the second-place winners from the London Business School will receive 3,000 Euros apiece.

Organized by internationally renowned chef Ferran Adrià in conjunction with Telefónica, the Ideas for Transformation competition challenged 31 teams of MBA students from top schools around the world to use creativity and innovative ideas to define the working structure of the elBulli Foundation, set to open in 2014 on the site of the former elBulli Restaurant.

Starting from tenets such as flexibility, sustainability, differentiation and relevance, to name a few, these student teams were encouraged to answer questions such as: What mechanisms should be adopted to attract the best international talent?; What will be the new standards for measuring the foundation’s performance?; How can the elBulli Foundation be made economically sustainable?; What organizational structure should the elBulli Foundation adopt?; What can be done to make the elBulli Foundation truly different and relevant?; and How can the strategic alliance between the elBulli Foundation and Telefónica be maximized?

To house this ambitious project, Ferrán embarked on a partnership with Spanish architect Enric Ruiz Geli, to create a singular place that is both harmonious with the area’s beautiful surroundings and 100% emissions free. This pilot project will incorporate the latest technology, including on-line, direct sharing of the many projects that will take place here with the rest of the world.

Congratulations to all the winners of this momentous competition!