Past Competitions

NASPAA’s 2023 Student Simulation Competition featured the Wildfire Simulation, also known as the Group Communication and Decision-Making Simulation, which required students to think fast and compose a community-driven wildfire mitigation plan. This simulation was designed by University of Colorado Boulder and built by Forio.

The real-time simulation places students in leadership roles within a time-sensitive, fast-paced environment where they must work together to minimize the impact of a deadly infectious disease.

The simulation, backed by extensive real-world data, placed competing students in leadership roles within a fast-paced environment where they worked together to build sustainable public transit infrastructure in their city.

Nearly 600 students from 147 universities in 27 countries took part in the NASPAA-Batten Student Simulation Competition. The simulation was built using real-world data and challenged students to work together to manage a migrant influx in a fast-paced environment.

Participants in the 2018 competition—the largest-ever student simulation competition in higher education--took on the Pandemic Simulation, in which players are confronted the spread of an infectious disease.

The 2017 NASPAA-Batten Student Simulation Competition was on the topic of Food Security and the world-wide effort to address UN Sustainable Development Goal 2. 

The second annual Student Simulation Competition focused on global warming. Students worked together, used the En-ROADS simulation model, built by Climate Interactive, and negotiated with each other to create a feasible policy package to limit global warming.

NASPAA’s 2015 Inaugural Student Simulation Competition was held February 28, 2015. The competition featured the ReThink Health simulation, which required students to apply the skills they have learned in the classroom and implement systems thinking.