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800 Contestants for Capital Market University Challenge

by Daniel Sabiiti
5:44 pm

The Executive Director of Capital Market Authority Robert-Mathu (4th Left) with winners of CMA University Challenge last year

Capital Market Authority (CMA) has doubled the prizes for the 5th University Challenge 2018, to attract more contestants.

Every year CMA organizes a competition which is aimed at sensitizing students and future employees to increase awareness and participation in stocks.

Registration is ongoing and is expected to close on March 15th and is open to everyone, but university students are encouraged to apply. 800 contestants are expected compared to 300 contestants in 2016. (2016 or 2017?)

After registration, initial reselections events will take place at provincial level. On March 22nd, the grand final will take place in Kigali at national level.

The annual challenge will be conducted through quiz and essays, (in English) and all questions related to the quiz will be testing the contestants’ knowledge around capital market operations.

This time around, the quiz winners will get prizes in liquid cash money but have an option of investing in stocks through brokers.

The overall winner will walk away with Rwf1, 500,000 followed by Rwf1, 200,000 and Rwf800, 000. All contestants will be awarded certificates of participation.

Previously, the overall winner in this category was awarded Rwf1million.

Essay writing will have the following cash prizes but in shares at the stock markets; the overall winner Rwf500, 000; 2nd winner Rwf300, 000 while the 3rd winner will cash Rwf200, 000 shares.

The competition remains open to capital markets clubs in the quiz category and individuals in the essay writing.

“We have a couple of target groups. The first will be the on-campus population, including students, faculty and staff in all universities across Rwanda. Registration is ongoing but we expect more than 800 participants,” a CMA statement reads.

So far, some previous winners of the 2017 challenge have started reaping big from the annual competition which started in 2012.

 It has awarded More than 150 students, targeting undergraduate students in all universities and other higher learning institutions in Rwanda.

A group of students at College of Business and Economics (CBE) in Huye district who won the last challenge have invested in stocks and are silently making lump sums of money after reinvesting their competition prize money through credible brokers.

With an initial capital of Rwf1.5 million, the students decided to register a company –Brave Statistical Analysts Group-(BSA) which has since trained 120 university students in using statistical software like Data pro.

“We won’t withdraw any shares for the next seven months. We will evaluate our finances in 2018 and look into possibilities of adding in more shares or start another business,” one of the students, Elise Musoni told KT Press last year.

The 4th edition of the University Challenge covered 21 universities and other higher institutions of learning across the country.

In the meantime, on the Rwanda stock markets, there was no activity as the week of business closed today with both stocks and shares index remaining constant, as of Wednesday, to close at 133.80 and 133.25 respectively.