Winners of the 2025 Africa & Middle East Emerald Case Writing Competition

Together with our partners at the El-Khazindar Business Research and Case Center at the American University in Cairo, we are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Africa & Middle East Emerald Case Writing Competition.

This competition is designed to encourage and promote the development of high-quality teaching case material relevant to the realities of dynamic and emerging economies in Africa, the Middle East, Türkiye and Pakistan.

The winning cases are:

Winning Case: I Love Coffee: A Growing Social Enterprise
Robert Venter, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa
Katherine Hofmayr, Wits Business School - Case Centre, South Africa

Runner Up: Julep's Journey: Differentiation in a Competitive Market
Emmanuel Silva Quaye, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Angie Urban, University of the Witwatersrand Business School, South Africa
Amanda Bowen, Wits Business School - Case Centre, South Africa

Runner Up: Digital Karam: AI Meets Arabian Hospitality Traditions
Asmaa Alfadala, Hamid Bin Khalifa University, Qatar
Siddharth Wadehra, Indian Institute of Management Ranchi, India
Ravi Chatterjee, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), United Arab Emirates
Suchi Dubey, Symbiosis International University, United Arab Emirates

On behalf of the entire editorial team at EMCS, we offer our sincerest congratuations!

We would also like to thank all our authors, our competition judges Leif Sjoblom and Alfred Rosenbloom, and Engy Magdy and Shereen El-Bowety, our partners at the AUC El-Khazindar Business Research and Case Center (KCC) for their contributions to this competition.