Principal Mutual Funds and Money Wizards, recently awarded winners of the 1^st edition of Youth Money Olympiad (YMO) at a function in Mumbai. The 1^st edition was held in July last year. YMO reached out to more than 7,700 students across 75 esteemed colleges from 41 cities in India with an aim to help students evaluate their personal finance awareness versus their peers.

The students were assessed on the basis of a personal finance IQ test conducted first at the college level and then at a national level. The participants were given exhaustive personal assessment reports and were provided with educational material to help them understand personal finance better.

The 1^st prize of the national round was awarded to Ms. Ranjai Banerji from IIM Calcutta while the 2^nd spot was shared by students from IIM Kozhikode and IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Ranchi followed by a student from Ethiraj College for Women at the 3^rd position. The winners of the national level were felicitated at the ceremony today amidst dignitaries from both personal finance and education sphere.

Mr. Lalit Vij, Managing Director, Principal Pnb Asset Management, said, “YMO is India’s largest personal finance education initiative for college students. Our aim was to inculcate financial literacy amongst the youth, which will help them take informed financial decisions once they start earning. YMO is the first step in that direction. We have much bigger plans for the 2^nd edition with a target of reaching 150 colleges across the country.  We are happy to have partnered with Money Wizards for this initiative, who share our vision and were instrumental in making the first edition a success.”

The 2^nd edition of YMO was announced on the occasion; which promises to be much bigger in scale and outreach. The new edition includes added focus centres, an online version for the campus level test, direct online participation outside campus, and inclusion of corporate freshers, in addition to students. The 2^nd edition aims to reach about 15,000 participants and about 150+ colleges across various centres.

Mr. Venkatesh Varadachari, co-founder and Managing Director, Money Wizards, said, “Lack of formal financial education in schools led us to conceptualizing and designing, The Youth Money Olympiad and I am proud to say that we have been able to educate the students about the importance of understanding and managing their personal finances, and this is just the beginning.”