CYBER Teams Add Exciting Multi-National Aspect to Junior Achievement International 1999 Hewlett-Packard Global Business Challenge.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 7, 1999--Three teams of corporate executives from the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada sit over computers, calculating projections and making quarterly business decisions.

With conversations on corporate strategy, production levels, pricing, marketing, R&D expenditures, global distribution and capital expenses that will influence their financial standings and industry standards for years to come, these could easily be executives from Hewlett-Packard, Federal Express, Citigroup, or American Express -- companies with proven reputations as industry leaders. But these decision-makers are actually high school students participating in the 1999 Hewlett-Packard Global Business Challenge, and their multi-national conversations are conducted via the Worldwide Web from their schools in their home countries. These CYBER Team participants have never actually met their international `business partners,' nor will any of them meet in person until the contest's conclusion.

These three CYBER Teams have joined 833 others from 47 countries around the world in the 1999 Hewlett-Packard Global Business Challenge (HPGBC), an international contest, where Junior Achievement students worldwide compete as managers of computer-simulated businesses. During the Challenge, teams of high school students make decisions affecting their "virtual businesses" via the Web. Teams having the best "bottom line results" will advance in the competition, which takes place over the next several months.

Several new countries have registered for the Challenge in 1999 including Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Brunei, Ireland, Netherlands, South Africa, and Turkey, as well as the new CYBER Teams, the concept for which originated in Japan. Contest groups have been organized so that each group contains teams from several countries. Participation has grown significantly since the Challenge was launched four years ago.

By the end of June, only eight teams will advance as finalists. These finalists will travel to Brussels, Belgium to participate in a live championship-round during September. During last year's finals in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), a team from Argentina won the $3000 first prize, with a Russian team taking home $2000 for second.

"The collaboration that technology makes available to all of the JA student teams in the HPGBC is of vital importance, as these students are experiencing the future of competitive global business," said Lee S. Ting, Vice President, Managing Director of Geographic Operations, Hewlett-Packard Company. "The CYBER teams are pushing the concept even further, as they learn and compete in a completely virtual environment. We expect this aspect of the contest to grow immensely in coming years."

You can follow the contest and learn more about all of the teams by visiting the Team Information Center and reading the weekly MESE Street Journal on the HPGBC homepage (www.jaintl.com/hpgbc). Junior Achievement is the world's oldest, largest and fastest-growing nonprofit economic education organization. JA International is responsible for developing and serving programs for over 1.1 million students in 106 countries outside the United States.

Hewlett-Packard Company (http://www.hp.com), the sponsor of the Challenge, is a leading global provider of computing, Internet and intranet solutions, services, communications products and measurement solutions, all of which are recognized for excellence in quality and support. HP has 122,800 employees and had revenue of $47.1 billion in its 1998 fiscal year.

Editor's Note: Interviews with students, photos, and B-roll available.