Sacha Debleds and Emeka Okafor (center) were recognized for their global literacy.

Question: Emperor Qin Shi Huang brought about the unification of China in which year?

Answer: 221 BC

This is one of 12 questions from 11 different regionalization exams that the MBA class of 2008 tackled as part of a Global Literacy Test series monitored by Professor Jean-Pierre Lehmann. Today, 10 participants were awarded with a free one-year subscription to the premium edition of the FT.com as a result of finishing with the top global literacy scores in the class.

The winners based on all 11 exams (132 questions) were:

Gold - Sacha Debleds (French) and Emeka Okafor (Nigerian)
Silver - Harsh Mehta (Indian), Sonal Matai (Indian) and Loon Chian Yeo (Singaporean)
Bronze - Marco Di Nubila (Italian), Jasmin Begagic (Australian), Roberto Lozada (Mexican), Andrea Tosti (Italian) and Ian Brooks (Canadian/Irish).

Professor Lehmann and MBA Program Director Benoit Leleux took part in an award ceremony to recognize the winners.

“It is essential in our globalized economy that future business leaders demonstrate a high level of global literacy,” stated Professor Lehmann, who also is the Founder of the Evian Group at IMD. “This test series served as a platform to make the MBA class more aware about the need to constantly seek knowledge.”

Following the awarding of their Financial Times premium subscriptions, the winners were asked how they learned about world affairs and the global economic, political and cultural environment. The exchange was intended to encourage the entire class on how to become more globally aware citizens. It was interesting to note that there were no common trends among the top 10 in the class, which consists of 90 participants representing 44 nationalities. The one common theme was that the winners all pointed to intellectual curiosity and humility as key to knowing more about the world.

“There is so much I don’t know that I need to better understand,” said Okafor.

Interestingly, Okafor did not travel extensively during his childhood and to date has never been to North or South America. However, he still was able to answer eight questions correctly on the Latin America Regionalization Exam. This score was higher than many of his fellow MBA classmates who hail from countries in Latin America. The key for Okafor is reading and having an open mind for further exploration.

“Reading has pushed me to be intellectually curious and seek more understanding,” he said. “The challenge for all of us is to go beyond reading newspapers and talking to people. These should be a spark to dig deeper and learn more. We need to be open enough to realize that there is so much we don’t know.”

Debleds had similar thoughts about the key to achieving a high global literacy score.

“This is a tremendous honor, but I am more ashamed about what I don’t know as opposed to being proud of what I do know,” he said.

Debleds pointed to his upbringing on the French island of Reunion as a catalyst for learning.

“Growing up, I was always challenged to ask ‘why’ and to dig deeper into issues. We are all born into the world without any knowledge and we are on a lifelong journey to constantly learn more.”

Gauge your global literacy knowledge in comparison to the MBA class and download the European Regionalization Exam. The class averaged 7.1 correct responses.