A team of MBA students from Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics has won second place and a $3,000 cash prize in the MBA Global Innovation Challenge, the world’s largest and most established business innovation competition.

As part of their award the students will also rang the closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange today, Friday, Jan. 27. In addition, the corporate sponsor for the Chapman team announced that it will implement the students’ innovation plan.

The Chapman team competed against teams from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and Virginia Commonwealth University Brandcenter, which took first place.

The announcement was made at the New York Stock Exchange at noon EST. All three finalist teams are in New York today and will ring today’s closing bell as part of their award.

The Chapman team advanced to the finals by winning first prize in its category. MBA students Doan Tran, Bryce Ricks, Kelsey Wurnos and Geoff Northup entered the competition back in August, creating a product development case for General Electric (GE). They recently became one of the top five finalists and presented their case directly to GE. That presentation secured their win in the GE category. Next, they competed against the other two category winners to become the “World’s Most Innovative MBAs.” The three finalist teams presented their concepts in the final round to GE, AT&T, Syngenta and five innovation experts earlier this month.

Chapman will be listed as a finalist on the Innovation Challenge website, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world every year.

For nine years the Innovation Challenge has matched graduate students from universities all over the world with leading companies in an experience designed to address pressing business and social innovation challenges.