BS Quiz Western Region: Sebi team wins western region finals

JP Morgan, Parle Tilak Vidyalaya B-school are first and second runners-up, respectively

Do you know what is common between the Hero of Alexandria and Thomas Adams, the inventor of chewing gum? Both invented the vending machine.

At the Business Standard Quiz Western Region Finals, amid tough competition between professionals from the corporate world and students, the team comprising Sriram Krishnan and Aarun Kumar from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) won. Vikram Keskar and Geo Thomas from JPMorgan were the first runners-up. The second runners-up was the team, consisting of Parth Bhatt and Monica Somne, from Parle Tilak Vidyalaya Association’s Institute of Management.

The teams from Sebi and JPMorgan will compete with the other finalists from the northern, southern and eastern regions in the Business Standard Quiz final on February 14 in Mumbai.

The winners went home with the grand prize of Rs 25,000, the first and second runners-up bagging Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000, respectively.

The turnout for the quiz was a good mix of educational institutes and corporates. Both the semi-finals and the finals of the western region finals saw students and professionals from the corporate world battle it out. The second semi-final saw the team from the Reserve Bank of India and NIRMA battle it out in a tie-breaker round where the latter made it to the finals.

Quizmaster Gaurav Sri Krishna said the participation level in Mumbai was much better than the rest of the country. The final round had teams from NIRMA, HDFC Life, Capgemini, Sebi, JPMorgan and Parle Tilak Vidyalaya Association’s Institute of Management.

In the western region finals, the questions ranged from tablets named after Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, namely Namo tablets and Ragaflam tablets, respectively to the Project X3 for development of Nano to the meaning of red market. There were several audio-visual questions as well, testing the brand knowledge and personalities of the participants.

After an initial written round with 20 questions, 12 teams were chosen for the semi-finals, and there were two semi-finals with six teams each. The last one was the finals of three teams, each chosen from the two semi-finals, and had six rounds.

The audience also had an equal chance to participate, and there were several instances of questions being bounced off to the audience.