Finance Newsletter – Summer 2022

FINHACK 2022

This spring, JSOM’s Finance Lab and Finance Area co-organized the inaugural FinHack Competition which combined both FinTech and Hackathon to present a full day of learning and hacking challenges to over 100 participating students. This event provided an opportunity for the students to use analytics tools and statistical modeling to hack financial and economic data. The event was sponsored by the Jindal School of Management, MaxDecisions, and Allegiance Capital.

To prepare for the hacking competition, students attended workshops on data intelligence in mergers and acquisitions and private equity, financial service industries, business analytics and more – several of which were led by UTD alumni. Vivekpandian Veerapandian BS’20, Data Scientist at Forbes, shared a presentation on using Python in data visualization and modeling. “I am honored that I was invited as a guest speaker for the FinHack Competition,” said Veerapandian. “It gave me an opportunity to share my knowledge and experience on time series forecasting and analysis using Python. It was a great experience going back to the University after a long time and interacting with students with curious minds.”

After the morning’s workshops, the participating students were divided into teams of three or four and were required to determine a topic on which to complete their research. Each team was also expected to retrieve data from financial databases including Capital IQ, Bloomberg and Eikon, etc., to generate an analytical report. After their three-hour preparation, the team presentations began.

Although the battles between each team were intense, all participants enjoyed the competition. Business analytics graduate student Chaitanya Valluri, a member of the third-place team #10, said, “The FinHack was an intense experience that pushed me to find synergy with like-minded peers. I learned valuable lessons about team building and creating synergy between technical skills and creative lateral thinking.” His team member Ayasha Anupam, a business analytics graduate student, also enjoyed FinHack.

“The event was very interesting to partake in and an experience to remember. It allowed me to broaden my horizons by working with people from different places and backgrounds, which made it even more fun to participate,” Anupam said. “A great opportunity to learn, grow and make connections that span the globe. One that I would gladly do again.”

Connie Mahmood, co-founder and chairperson at Allegiance Capital Corporation, served as a judge at FinHack. She praised the competition and the caliber of students who participated.

“This was my first time as a judge in such a competition. All I can say is that you should be proud of the hard-working group of students you have there and how much they really care about what they are learning and how they can contribute and make this world a better place for all of us.”

The top three teams and their members:

1st Place: Shocks and Stocks

Team Members: Punit Sanghvi, Twisha Choudhary, Nimish Sharma, Ibrahim Mosavi.
Cash Prize – $1000

2nd Place: ESG & Fintech

Team Members: Ishwari Gondkar, Jay Patel, Aaron Chang, Sagar Patil
Cash Prize – $ 600

3rd Place: Meme Stocks

Team Members: Amith Inturi, Tamara Aziz, Chaitanya Valluri, Ayesha Anupam
Cash Prize – $400