Three college students developed a cosmetics company and projected annual production worth millions.

Not so much as a single lip stick, the idea was good enough to take them to Paris.

The three make up one of four Chinese teams that will compete in the finals of an international business challenge organized by cosmetics giant L'Oreal to familiarize students with the realities of the cosmetics industry.

More than 500 Chinese students applied to compete.

Eight teams, each made up of three sophomore and junior students, from Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University passed three rounds of competition in October and became China's representatives to compete with teams from three French engineering colleges: Centrale Paris, Mines Paris and ICAM Lille.

Last week, B'echo and TPM from Zhejiang University, Matrix and PAIC from Tsinghua University beat another four teams to earn a berth in the final at the end of January.

The finalists will give a presentation to defend their project, on which they have worked for three months, before a jury composed of L'Oreal industrial managers and members of the L'Oreal Industrial Challenge Committee.

The TPM team from Zhejiang University is made up of the electromechanical student Luo Yun, economy student Deng Deng and biochemistry student Lan Jie.

"All of us enjoyed designing our project in the last two months. We failed in some ideas but never gave up. The game challenges us to apply what we learn and what we think to practice," says Luo.

Wang Wei from the Industrial Material Department, Zhang Peng from the Industrial Engineering Department and Xu Li from the Computer Software Department make up Tsinghua's Matrix team.

The woman Xu says, "The game brings us together and we share the different knowledge each of us have. Then we realize our common goal together."

L'Oreal started the Industrial Challenge in 2001 among Chinese students. Teams from Nanjing University and Suzhou University won the previous three games. They won a half-year abroad internship at the companies of the L'Oreal Group.

The competition is based on a case study of industrial development and participants have to propose an innovative plan within certain constraints.

During the whole process, each team is backed by a "coach," an industrial manager from L'Oreal, who guides them during the project and helps the team with sourcing information.

"We hope the students can apply their talents and what they have learned from class to practice," says Chea Lun, L'Oreal China Industry Division director.

(China Daily January 4, 2005)