3rd in the world: twitter thread journey (with photos)

compiled from my twitter thread posted on 09/19/2019:



I can't believe it. 18,000 teams, 131 countries, 3 international rounds and finally... 3rd in the world. Grateful for this experience representing North America. The International Quant Championship lasted 6 months, finally cumulating here in Singapore for the final round:





This journey has been insane. @MartinListwan and I initially entered for fun, to push our limits + try something new. We started competing as the small but mighty Team AJ/MCL, soon Team Canada and later as the North American Quant Champions, around 4 months into competition.



The global round before finals was intense. We weren't sure we'd make it to Singapore. Including us (Canada), 16 teams made the cut: USA, Mexico, Germany, Finland, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, France, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Israel, Australia, Hong Kong and Philippines.





4 of these teams would make it to the finals, alongside 11 other teams from separate global rounds. Somehow, we ended up in 1st out of 16 that round and secured our spot in Singapore. The IQC flew + hosted us all there in the Marina Bay Sands, a crazy first-time experience!









We met with the 14 other top quant teams from around the world who also made it to the finals: France, China, India, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, United Kingdom and Vietnam. A super passionate + brilliant group of people.











Finally, competition time. We were given a challenge to complete live in 4 hours. Quants on the other side of the world would wake up early morning to compute deep real-time analysis + results from our solutions, presented as a surprise slide mid-presentation the next day.









Teams had no idea how they did in the challenge until the surprise slide came up mid-way through their presentations with results. Some originally confident teams were devastated in seconds, while others were relieved from the surprise. We felt good.





I remember thinking if Team Canada was going to walk the stage today, I wanted to do it in my favourite pair of heels, and wearing a dress I've been waiting to bust out for months.



And we did!!



Comrades from Team China and Team India won 1st and 2nd place respectively.













Overall, the International Quant Championship was a life-changing experience full of twists and turns. But it was also an experience filled with tremendous growth, discipline and life-long friends from around the world. While we didn't take home the title, we are still proud.







Some bonus gifs from our stay:

































Thank you again to our incredible mentors Irina Makarenko and Phurie Top (unfortunately neither have twitter!) and of course @christinaqi as always. We hope we can be as incredible of mentors & role models as you were to us in the future. Thank you x1000000!



Fun fact: apparently over a million dollars was spent on this competition, flying and hosting 15 top quant teams around the world.



IQC Promotional video: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/rXvZCGdU7arqUvBBfoCcZZ?