St Stephen’s Winners of The National Economics Fest

A group of Grade 11 students, Abhi, Avi, Jay, Krish, Shrey, Shubh and Vedant, won the second place at St. Stephen’s ‘National Economics Fest’, and received several points, as well as a trophy for 'The best contingent' due to high participation as all students participated in the three events and at a good performance. Amongst nearly 800 teams, the TISB team was the only school team to qualify as finalists in different events alongside several undergraduate colleges. They also secured second place in the case study event, ‘La Case De Papel’, and received certificates and cash prizes. We reached out to the students to learn more about their success and what this might mean for their future.  

We'd like to extend our gratitude to Ms Ammu who was our team's teacher representative during this entire journey – Grade 11 Team 

St. Stephens National Economics Fest is one of the most prestigious economics competitions for undergraduate schools and selected people from Grades 11 and 12 in India. The sub-categories that the team took part in were the ‘Prometheus’ (quiz event), ‘Econozombies’ (product development event) and ‘La Case De Papel’ (case study question). “Being a close-knit cohort of individuals extremely interested in economics we decided to come together and test our knowledge on the subject”, says Vikram, and explains how hard and ambitious the team worked while being part of a large pool of participants. 

The Case Study event took six scenarios where the teams had to act as the World Bank, allocating fractions out of 100 billion USD to each of the six situations, indicating why they chose to give funding and how they could be used. “The Prometheus event was a Business and Economics quiz, and the event dubbed Econozombies required us to create a product based around a theme we had chosen”, explains Shubh, whose team chosen such things as healthcare and energy, which helped people in a Zombie Apocalypse. 

All the students were making a great contribution and enjoyed taking part in the event. “We are grateful to TISB for their contributions to our learning which allowed us to compete and win”, says Vedant. “Winning a prize is always a great and satisfying experience. I am very proud of our team and appreciate all the hard work they put in,” says Jay. Veer agrees and is happy about the recognition: “I am grateful for the recognition we have received and am truly honoured to have been a part of such a talented team winning one of the most prestigious economic events in India.” 

That the event was focusing on the World Bank gave an opportunity for participants to focus their learning on something that happens in real life. “The complexity shed a new light on the subject for us, and I know that everyone in our team will be pursuing either Economic or Business or any of these branches in the coming years”, says Krish, who feels that there are many important consequences related to decision made by governing bodies, and those affect many people in many ways.  

It was an exciting event especially because the team was on a waiting list as finalists for one of the events and were called on an hour before the finals. “In an hour's time we prepared everything together. Just seven boys suddenly became board members of the World Bank with their foot on the pedal and we were excellent”, says Shrey, who along with his team was enjoying the positive result, taken on the college teams and were not just the only school team to qualify, but the only school team to win.