Fifth Annual GS Quantify Student Competition Yields Innovative Engineering Solutions

Over 3,500 students from 25 engineering schools across India participated in the fifth annual GS Quantify engineering challenge hosted by the Goldman Sachs office in Bengaluru. The computer science, quantitative and machine learning contest featured 352 teams of students competing to provide solutions to real-world quantitative finance and analytics problems.

The teams were asked to develop solutions to business scenarios ranging from modelling of market volatility to developing predictive models using machine learning techniques. Eleven of the top teams were invited to present their ideas to senior leaders in the business.

Sajid Ahmed, Co-Head of Technology in Bengaluru, shared insights to how machine learning would play a crucial role in the financial services sector in the years to come. Yogesh Chati, Vice-President, Technology, Goldman Sachs Bengaluru, provided an overview of engineering, the evolution and importance of strats across divisions, and how these roles have grown within the Bengaluru office.

The teams presented their solutions to a panel of Goldman Sachs professionals, and the three winning teams— ‘los_pepes’’ from  IIT BHU Varanasi, ‘Pomegranate Seeds’ from IIT Guwahati and ‘Analytics_rangers’ from IIT Roorkee— received smartphones as prizes. All finalist teams received new tablets.

The winning teams stood out for demonstrating a thorough understanding of the problem domains, attempting new approaches to creating solutions, and experimenting with a number of techniques.

“The questions were very intriguing and required us to exercise our brain cells,” remarked one of the participants. “The judges paid careful attention to what we presented, took note of all the various optimizations made for our final presentations—this created a very positive experience for us,” he added.

Vidya Lakshmi, Head of Human Capital Management in Bengaluru congratulated the participants and emphasized how the GS Quantify competition helps engage students and demonstrates the firm’s commitment to engineering. A networking dinner with the participants followed an awards presentation.