Amba Research the ‘Best Mercantile Team ’at TMC’s Wisdom Quiz

The Management Club (TMC)  held their sixth annual Wisdom Quiz competition at the Galle Face Hotel on 24 September. Being a team event with five-member teams, the competition was open to four sectors – Schools and Educational Institutions, Mercantile Sector, Banks and Financial Institutions and Teams of Individuals.

The event comprised of five rounds of questions based on five subjects — Current Affairs, Sports, General Knowledge, Space and Astronomy and Arts/Literature and Entertainment - each round consisting of 10 questions.

It was encouraging to see the two teams fielded by Amba Research had scored the same number of points and a tie-breaker round had to be conducted for the organisers to decide on the winners in this sector.

The winning team from Amba Research was led by Rishad Ismail with Malaka Paranavitane, Thilan Sampath, Irshad Thameem and Salmar Nazar as the rest of the members while their second team led by Rashmi Peiris comprised of Lasitha de Alwis, Jetha Elvitigala, Faazil Sheriff and Manuja Kasthuriarachchi.

Amba Research had also been a past winner at this Quiz having been the best Mercantile team at the TMC Wisdom Quiz in 2007. Dialog Axiata, who won this category award for three consecutive years up to 2010, had to  be contended with the third position in the mercantile category whilst Interblocks, DHL Global, Akbar Brothers, Aitken Spence Cargo were the other teams that competed in this category.

Seylan Bank emerged winners in the banking sector beating Commercial Bank and HNB in to second and third positions whilst the other Bank teams that competed in this category were from were Sampath Bank, NDB and People’s Bank who also had two teams

Royal College Colombo and Dharmaraje College Kandy shared the top honours in the schools category while the overall winners of the Quiz was the team led by Vindana Ariyawansa. They collected the WISDOM-ICTA Challenge Trophy and Rs. 75,000 in cash plus certificates. Being the sixth consecutive year of the quiz, it was a tough battle with 43 teams competing for honours – the highest number in the history of the competition. The event was supported by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka for the first time as the main sponsor with ACBT, ICBT Campus, Pan Audio, DSI, CMI Sri Lanka Branch and People’s Bank, Sunday Times and Education Mirror coming in as supporting partners.

‘All Thurstanites’ another team of individuals led by Srimal Ratnasinghe emerged as Runners up and were awarded a cash prize of Rs. 40,000 plus a trophy and certificates and in third, fourth and fifth place were teams led by Poorna Molligoda, Moumika Jayasinghe and Dammika Atapattu respectively winning cash awards of Rs. 25,000, Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 15,000with certificates.

It was encouraging to see new teams entering the competition this year. Among the first-timers in the Wisdom quiz were teams from St Lawrence and Lyceum in the schools category and Akbar Brothers, Tech One Global, Techno Medics and Sri Lankan Airlines in the mercantile category and also a team calling themselves Smart Minds in the Independent groups category.

A notable feature in the TMC Quiz as it has always been is that all contestants are presented with a certificate of participation, while all schools teams are awarded book vouchers to the value of Rs. 2500 - this year it was with the courtesy CMI Sri Lanka Branch.  Ranked by quizzers as one of the best table quizzes now in Sri Lanka, the questions  compiled for this competition by founder member of TMC and Sri Lanka’s representative of the International Quizzing Association UK, Ruwan Senanayake – have always been of a very high standard that generates much enthusiasm in the audience and the participants alike with visuals and video clips also being a part of some questions in every round.  

TMC is thankful to every one who has supported this program, especially ICT Agency, the principal sponsors of the event, and has plans to continue with the WISDOM-ICTA Quiz every September in their endeavour in continuing with this knowledge development initiative.