It was Vindana Ariyawansa and his team who walked away with the WISDOM-ICTA Challenge Trophy and Rs 75,000/- in cash plus certificates at the TMC WISDOM-ICTA 2011 Quiz Competition held at the Galle Face Hotel last Saturday 24 September. Organised by The Management Club (TMC) for the sixth year in succession, it was a tough battle with 43 teams competing for honours this year - the highest number in the six year history of the competition.
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Winners - Vindana Airiyawans'a team |
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 & People's Bank , Sunday Times and Education Mirror coming in as supporting partners.
The team calling themselves 'All Thurstanites' were Runners up and won a cash award of Rs 40,000/= plus a trophy & certificates and in 3rd, 4th & 5th place were teams led by Poorna Molligoda, Moumika Jayasinghe & Dammika Atapattu respectively winning cash awards of 25,000/=, 20,000/= and 15,000/= with certificates.
After a tough battle with two tie-breaker rounds the honours for the schools' category was finally shared between Royal College & Dharmaraja College Kandy. Incidentally Dharmaraja won the schools category in last year's TMC quiz , having taken part in the event for the first time while Royal who were the overall winners in the inaugural TMC quiz, won the schools award in 2008 and 2009.
Seylan Bank emerged winners in the banking sector beating Commercial Bank & HNB in to 2nd & 3rd positions whilst the Mercantile sector award was won by Amba Research pushing Dialog Axiata, who won this category award for 3 consecutive years up to 2010, to second place. Others who competed in the banking category were Sampath Bank, NDB, People's Bank whilst Interblocks, DHL Global, Akbar Brothers, Aitken Spence Cargo were among the teams under the mercantile sector.
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Royal & Dharmaraja - best Schools teams |
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 & Lyceum in the schools category and Akbar Brothers, Tech One Global, Techno Medics & Sri Lankan Airlines in the mercantile category and also a team calling themselves Smart Minds in the Independent groups category.
The competition was open to 04 sectors - Schools & Educational Institutions, Mercantile Sector, Banks & Financial Institutions & Teams of Individuals. Conducted as a team event with 05 members in each team the questions were based on five subjects - Current Affairs, Sports, General Knowledge, Space & Astronomy & Arts/Literature and Entertainment - with each round consisting of 10 questions.
All contestants were awarded a certificate of participation, a unique feature in TMC's WISDOM series, and trophies were presented to the 04 sector winners separately. All Schools teams were awarded book vouchers to the value of Rs 2500/= courtesy CMI Sri Lanka Branch. Another notable feature this year was that an attractive souvenir, with photographs of past winners of all 5 TMC Wisdom Quizzes, was issued to every participant, which certainly would have been a valuable 'take away' for them.
Ranked as one of the best table quiz competitions now in Sri Lanka, a very high standard was maintained as always, with the questions having been compiled by founder member of TMC and Sri Lanka's representative of the International Quizzing Association UK, Ruwan Senanayake who was TMC's official Quiz Master for 04 years in a row from 2006. This time too the Quiz Master's role was played by the immediate past Chairman of TMC-Galle Face, Varuna Ratnaweera for the second year in succession, nominated by Ruwan to stand in for him as he was away in Australia and could not make it for the quiz.
However Ruwan was on line with the organisers who gave him regular updates and at one point he even clarified the doubts that one of the contestants had - about an answer to a question.
At the end of the 5th round of questions the participants had the opportunity to listen to Ruwan, live from Melbourne, who encouraged them to develop this mind sport further, continuing in the quest of seeking knowledge and improving their memory power.
TMC is thankful to all those who supported this program, especially ICT Agency, the principal sponsors of the event, and hopes to continue with the WISDOM-ICTA Quiz which has now come to stay in their annual events calendar. |