“Uber Tests Self-Driving Cars”
“Amazon Testing Drone Delivery System”

We are constantly hearing buzz about technology and how companies like Amazon, Uber, Tesla, and many others are looking to innovate. I must say that it is even more exciting to hear when these innovations relate to my particular major. Over winter break, when I was participating in the accounting study abroad trip, a common theme that came up during many of our visits to public accounting firms abroad was how technology is completely transforming the accounting industry.

One accounting firm we visited in London spoke about how they would like to explore the use of drones. I remember thinking to myself, how could the use of drones possibly be beneficial when it comes to doing accounting work? However, the presenter went on to explain how during certain audit engagements, if they can have drones fly over certain areas, such as open cast mines, for example, the auditors can monitor the progress instead of having to actually visit these acres and acres of land. 

Hearing about examples like these where accounting firms are looking to invest more and more in new technologies inspired our team to present about this matter at the 2^nd Annual Global Showcase, put together by the Office of Global Initiatives (OGI) and the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at the Smith School of Business.

The event’s purpose was to celebrate global learning by giving all business students who studied abroad during the 2017 winter break (which happened to be more than 100 students who went abroad this winter break) the opportunity to present about their global learning experience. There were 40 student poster board presentations on display, and the Office awarded $2,500 in global scholarships.

For the showcase, my team and I put together a presentation that combined the topics of accounting, drones, and our predictions of how machine learning could result in robots doing accounting work in the future. And the results? My team and I were able to somehow “wow” the judges and we won the Enterprise and Innovation category, along with the $500 prize money that came with the category win! If you weren’t already convinced to sign up for a study abroad based on all the posts about studying abroad on our Around the Grove blog, I hope this post at least sparked an interest!