Indian Institute of Management Raipur reached yet another milestone as a team from the college participated in the Rotman International Trading Competition, organized by Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto organized its 13th annual Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC 2016) on Thursday, February 18th, 2016 to Saturday, February 20th, 2016. RITC is an intensive three-day trading competition. International Relation Committee took the initiative and started the registration process for selecting a team of four to represent IIM Raipur at RITC. It was decided that to form a team with the best performing individuals, the eliminations will be in multiple rounds, and on an individual performance basis.
Round 1 was conducted on November 30. Only 10 students managed to qualify for the 2nd Round which was held on 1st December. It was an objective format quiz with 20 questions and 30 minutes duration. Top 4 students from Round-2 were chosen to qualify for the next and final interview round. Under the guidance of Prof. Satyasiba Das and Prof. M Kanadhasan, the team compromising of Jaysun Antony Alumkal, Manish Kumar, Amber Gupta and Sidharth Sachdeva prepared for this competition. They competed with 52 other Universities from all across the world including Boston University, New York University, University of Virginia, Duke University, Cornell University and many others.
This was aimed to provide students an international platform and test their knowledge and skills and compete on an international scale. And to achieve this IIM Raipur provides full financial support to its students, to participate in international student exchange program as well as encourages students to participate in such prestigious events. The event compromised of several rounds including outcry, BP Commodity trading, Credit Risk Case, Sales & Trading and Algo Trading where students from each team traded on live software. The students who participated came back with learning and experience to cherish throughout life. The vibe and the dedication, not to mention the effort that the participants put into the cases, were admirable and events like this help us introspect ourselves and throw light on the areas we need to improve to be globally competitive.
Here was a vast difference between the technical prowess and practice between our students and them. Right from the word go, the difference could be analyzed by the sounds of hundreds of mouse clicks per second which also reflected the confidence that the students from US/Canadian universities had. The most important factor that made them having an upper edge was that most of them had access to the software; not only that but they also had faculty mentors to help them during the competitions. Moreover, a majority of them were majoring in M.Fin and had some sort of background in finance. To perform better our students need to create a culture, pass on the learnings and start much before to bridge the skill gap. We need to practice more in order to give them good competition. The senior junior combination worked well, though. One thing is ensured that our students have gained a vast amount of knowledge and experience and that would be very beneficial for our juniors.
Our students got a very good opportunity to network and interact with industry experts. They realized that their financial markets were much more developed than that of our country; for example, algorithmic trading was introduced decades ago while it was allowed in India only in 2008. No doubt that in the coming years IIM Raipur will only get better and better setting a realistic target of finishing in top 10 overall in 2 years; if we continue to participate in the same. Talking about the general experience outside the competition, the locals were very helpful and interaction with them was very pleasant. Another striking feature was the diversity in terms of nationalities that were working in Toronto. One thing that was distinctively noticeable was that majority of the entry level jobs were being done by either the Indians or the Chinese. There was a vast presence of Japanese diaspora as well. This proves the potential that Indians have that they are present in such a huge number there. The only requirement is to make the most of our resources and compete them effectively which our students did, and will continue doing in future.