The Youth Money Olympiad (YMO) is a national level competition open to college students. Its aim is to help students evaluate their personal finance awareness. The winners of the first edition of Youth Money Olympiad were honoured by Principal Mutual Funds and Money Wizards at a function in Mumbai recently. The first edition had the YMO reaching out to more than 7,700 students across 75 colleges, from 41 cities in India.
The students were assessed on the basis of a personal finance IQ test conducted first at the college level, and then at a national level. The participants were given personal assessment reports and were provided with educational material to help them understand personal finance issues. Ranjai Banerji from IIM Calcutta bagged the first prize, while the second spot was shared by students from IIM Kozhikode and IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Ranchi, followed by Janani Srinivasan, a student from Ethiraj College for Women at the third position.
What is the importance of YMO?
The Youth Money Olympiad aims at creating an awareness on the importance of personal finance among college students.
What motivated you to take part?
We have had Science and Math Olympiads in school. This competition was unique in the sense that it was for college students and was about personal finance — a subject of day-to-day use and application.
What was the factor that helped you win?
I have been interested in investing and finance and have been reading books of famous investors.
This has helped me to understand what the financial jargons actually mean in the business world, which helped me to get a better understanding than just reading some theory.
What edge did you have over the others?
I have been participating in a lot of quizzes over the past few years and have made it a point to read newspapers regularly. Due to this, I have been coming across tidbits and articles about finance, investing and so on, and the exposure has helped me to win this competition.
Have you always been into competitions?
I wouldn’t describe myself as a very competitive or ambitious person, but yes, I participate in competitions to know where I stand. My college also is supportive of me participating in competitions.
Do you think this will help you later?
Yes, definitely. Managing my finances is something I am definitely going to do in the future and what I have learnt now is going to come in handy. I know that my knowledge of the subject is not complete, yet.
But I believe that this competition had triggered my interest inlearning a very useful subject.