Youth Model United Nations conference in Sri Lanka

The Rotract Club of Colombo North organized the first ever Youth Model United Nations conference in Sri Lanka on the 17th and 18th of December 2011 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute. The event was endorsed by the Higher Education Ministry, the US Embassy to Sri Lanka, the United Nations, UN volunteers, Rotary, National Youth Services Council and The Justice Weeramantri Center. The participants for the conference included delegates from many private and state universities of Sri Lanka along with many individual delegates. The delegates from the Royal Institute of Colombo were able to win the following prestigious awards.

Security Council - Best Delegate - Gabon - Shiran Fernando

1st com - Best Delegate Nominee - India - Naushalya Rajapaksha

3rd com - Best Delegate Nominee - China - Dilara Liyanagama

Best Delegation Nominee – China

The delegation consisted of:

• Security Council - Malik Hanan
• ECOSOC - Nikitha Senaratne
• 1st com - Sajith Weerasooriya
• 2nd com - Thejani Gunasekara
• 3rd com - Dilara Liyanagama

Best University (runners up) - Royal Institute of Colombo

The delegation comprised of

Royal Institute of Colombo (RIC)

emerge winners of the

Investment Research Challenge 2011

Royal Institute of Colombo (RIC) emerged as the winners of the CFA Sri Lanka Investment Research Challenge 2011, which was organized by the CFA Institute of Sri Lanka for the fifth consecutive year.

The team from RIC comprised of Travis Gomez (Team Leader), Yang Mengxi, Deshani Seneviratne, Mikail Mushin and Udesh Rodrigo. Mr. Akvan Gajanayake, himself a winner of this competition 3 years ago, performed his duties as the faculty advisor of the RIC team.

CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual, global educational initiative promoting the best practices in equity research among business school students from leading universities through hands-on mentoring and intensive training in company analysis and presentation skills. Last year nearly 2,500 students from over 546 universities in 45 countries participated in the competition.

The Research Challenge is composed of three main levels of competition; local, regional and global. Local CFA societies will host local Challenges with nearby universities and select one winning team based on the students' research report and presentation.

The 2011 local competition saw student teams from the University of Colombo, Sri Jayawardanepura, Moratuwa, Kelaniya, APIIT and RIC taking part. The teams had to analyse a publicly quoted company, Tokyo Cement Company (Lanka) PLC, and present a report to a team of investment professionals who grade the reports.

The teams had an opportunity to meet with company management and visit a manufacturing plant in order to gain a deeper knowledge of the company. Each team also worked with a CFA charterholder who mentored the team during the research process and reviewed and critiqued its report, giving the students an opportunity to work with a professional investment research analyst.

The 4 teams with the highest scores on their reports have to present and defend their recommendation to a high profile panel of judges from local financial institutions. The team with the highest combined scores from the report and presentation are adjudged the winners.

As the winners of the national competition, RIC has qualified to represent Sri Lanka at the Asia Pacific regional competition to be held in Hong Kong in February 2012. The Asia Pacific round will see 19 teams from 16 countries taking part and the winners of this round will progress to the Global Final to be held in New York.

Incidentally this is the third year that RIC won the Sri Lanka leg of the competition during its 5 year history. RIC was adjudged as joint champions together with the University of Sri Jayawardanepura in 2007, the first year the competition was held and became champions again in 2008.