York University students with the Department of Economics, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, gathered on March 16 for the department’s first-ever interdisciplinary case competition.
The goal was to give students the opportunity to gain valuable experience and network with leading industry professionals from companies such as Sunray Group, CFA Society Toronto and QUAD.
Shubham Bansal is a second-year undergraduate student pursuing financial and business economics. He is also vice-president of competitions for the Economics Students’ Association and chief organizer behind the event. According to Bansal, “the reason behind organizing this competition was to give students a platform to come up with logical explanations to a problem and present them in front of an audience.”
Nine teams were asked to prepare a presentation analyzing the potential outcomes for autonomous vehicle technology in Canada. Bansal said the topic was selected because autonomous vehicles “will have an economic, social and political impact on Canada,” giving students a lot to work with.
The nine teams registered for the competition were from universities across the province. They were each given 10 minutes to present their case to a panel of esteemed judges, who then in turn asked the presenters a series of questions. This happened in four separate rooms simultaneously. They were judged on presentation, content and cohesion. The teams with the highest scores went on to the finals.
Bansal started working on a proposal for the event last summer, and is encouraged by the number of universities and industry leaders who decided to take part. The case competition was specifically designed by him to “provide students with adequate opportunities to network with panellists and competitors to showcase themselves and their skills to possible recruiters or future employers.”
The first and third positions were secured by teams from Waterloo. The second position was secured by the University of Toronto. The Social Media Prize was won by York.
“The Department of Economics was impressed with our initiative and looks forward to the event being organized in future,” said Bansal.
The tremendous response from students and prominent judges makes a strong case for revisiting the competition next year.