Last week, we presented one of AEclipse's flagship events, the International Research Project. This week, we turn to another of our flagship events: the National Economic Olympiad (NEO), which took place on the 5th of March this year! In this article, you can read more on what the Olympiad was like and how to committee successfully maneuvered the first online edition of the event.
After successfully organising the National Economic Olympiad for the past 4 years, the Academic Committee organised the first completely online version of the event, the National Economic Olympiad 2021, in association with the Royal Dutch Economic Association (KVS) and Erasmus School of Economics (ESE).
The competition garnered interest from various universities across the Netherlands including the University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University and Maastricht University, to name a few, resulting in a record high of over 80 students or 30 teams applying for the Olympiad. After careful consideration, 11 teams were selected to compete in NEO 2021.
The Olympiad this year consisted of 11 questions, each coming from a different sub-set of economics. The questions were also sent in by professors across the Netherlands. The range of the questions was quite enormous, engulfing topics from Financial economics to Game theory and from Behavioural Economics to Public Policy. This was quite the challenge as it questions the participants' knowledge on various arenas of economics.
The competition was tough and fierce, but three teams made it through and grabbed the winnings for the Olympiad. The second and third prize winners won 200 euros and 100 euros respectively. The winning team not only received a monetary compensation of 300 euros but also won an in-house day with ABN-AMRO!
The winners of the competition: Andrea Pogliano, Yasmine Van der Straten and Antonia Kurz, from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam
The Olympiad ended with a captivating lecture given by Prof. Rick van Der Ploeg on the "Green Recovery after the Pandemic". It was an incredible lecture which brought about some pertinent points as we head towards a new normal. The lecture was not only attended by inspired students but also by many university professors, which resulted in a fruitful intellectual discussion on the ways and means to adapt after the Pandemic and on how we can make better and greener choices. The lecture itself had over 60+ attendees and stands to be one of the most successful Keynote lectures in the Olympiad's history.
