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Students design investment strategies to address climate change in India

The first student competition to design investment strategies that tackle climate change while driving economic growth in India is being hosted by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

The India Impact Challenge was created by the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at UNC Kenan-Flagler and is sponsored by Quantum Advisors.

It is open to graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in higher education institutions throughout the world – from any department or school within their institutions. They will submit investment strategies in India that will facilitate equitable growth while limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

“India needs both capital and solutions now, which provides enormous opportunity for investment,” says Jeff Mittelstadt (MBA ’07), executive director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and professor of the practice of strategy and entrepreneurship at UNC Kenan-Flagler. “This is a unique opportunity for students to learn how investment strategies can make a positive difference.”

Powering the competition is Quantum Advisors, founded by Ajit Dayal (MBA ’83) in 1990 as India’s first equity research house. “We are honored to work with Quantum Advisers on this challenge, since they are dedicated to simultaneously addressing climate change and investing for a better world,” says Mittelstadt.

“The late UNC Kenan-Flagler Professor Jack Behrman – a proponent of finding market solutions to societal problems while ensuring that market solutions do not create societal problems – was a firm believer in the power and talent of students to lead change,” says Dayal. “The inaugural India Impact Challenge focuses on the universal problem of climate change – a question of survival of our species according to some scientists – and how India can meet its need for economic growth while ensuring that this very growth is achieved without adding to the dangers of climate change.”

Judging the competition will be business global leaders in finance, ESG, public and private investment, sustainability and international development. They will provide feedback to teams and determine the most innovative solutions. Judges will have a unique opportunity to network with other professionals around the world and meet our next generation of investment and climate leaders.

Student teams will compete for a portion of $15,000 in prize money.

The deadline for submissions is March 29, 2021. Final judging will take place during the virtual challenge April 16-17.

3.5.2021