Economic Literacy for the Younger Generation

A group of TISB students, Shaunak, Viraj, Aarnav, and Kushagra from Grade 12, were part of this year’s Young Tycoons Business Challenge (YTBC), where they got second place with their team, PL-WAN. Winning the second place, the team received a 3000 USD certificate, as well as experience of a lifetime. We contacted Shaunak and his team members to find out more about the competition, challenges along the way and how they managed to overcome these, as well as their thoughts for the future.

The YTBC investment competition has taught us various things and given us an experience of a lifetime – Shaunak and the PL-WAN team

The team’s name, ‘PL-WAN’, was inspired by the character Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Star Wars series. The team founded ‘Ez-Trade’, an application aimed at improving financial literacy amongst youth by making learning about the stock market fun through a competition. Currently to invest in the Indian stock exchange one must be 18 years and above. “The four of us were denied various opportunities in the past to enter stock market competitions due to our age”, says Shaunak, whose team realised that this must be an issue faced by many across the country – something that also significantly impacts financial literacy rates. 

To overcome this, the PL-WAN team worked in a holistic way and with big ambitions to develop the app. “Our vision is to have 5000+ users by the end of this year and be the pioneer in an industry that currently does not exist”, says Shaunak and explains that he and his team are looking forward to their latest update, which will make the app reach great heights. “We want to keep this going for as long as we can and make a significant impact”, says Shaunak.

However, not everything is a smooth sailing, and the team faced numerous difficulties. “As we were in different regions of the country, collaborating and finding time when we all were free was difficult”, says Shaunak, who along with his team mates also had a number of IB deadlines that made finding time for collaborating even more challenging. “We began delegating tasks and using online platforms such as ‘Trello’ and ‘Slack’ to work more efficiently”, he continues and says that the team is extremely happy with the progress and can not wait for what is ahead.

For more information about the competition and how to apply for the next round, visit the YTBC website.