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Teams of ���ϲ����� students applied their economics, data analysis and presentation skills in the 2021 ���ϲ����� Microfinance Challenge, hosted by the ���ϲ����� Microfinance Initiative (EMI) and the Department of Economics.

Over the course of three weeks, teams analyzed proprietary data for Seed Effect, a nonprofit organization providing microfinance opportunities to South Sudanese refugees and Ugandans, to assess the impact of the microfinance initiative and offer recommendations to the organization.

Steve DeLoach, Martha and Spencer Love Professor and chair of the Department of Economics, and Tonmoy Islam, assistant professor of economics and EMI faculty advisor, served as faculty consultants.

“We wanted to create an opportunity for students to analyze real-world data and then present the findings to the clients,” Islam explained. “We are grateful to Seed Effect for providing us with the data. We didn’t give a specific prompt to the students. The teams were asked to find something interesting from the dataset and present the results in a way that the general audience can understand.

“The teams did a wonderful job analyzing and presenting the data. The judges were thoroughly impressed by the presentations.”

Placing first in the challenge was the team of Kyle Hensler ’22, economics major, Campbell Shepard ’22, economics major and Business Fellow, and Cole Haecker ‘22, economics and finance double major.

“My biggest takeaway from this experience was the emphasis on teamwork and collaboration,” Shepard said. “Cole, Kyle and I had never worked together before, but we quickly realized that we were able to bounce ideas off each other and gelled incredibly well. I believe that’s what set us apart and really allowed us to maximize our time and skills in order to win this competition.”

The team of Andrea Marasso ’21, international business dual degree student, Payton Donnan ’24, international business dual degree student, and Nick Morello ’24, Business Fellow, placed second.

Seed Effect evaluated teams’ presentations on their analyses of the impact of the village savings and loan programs on South Sudanese refugee households in Uganda as well as the teams’ ability to help Seed Effect convert the impact of their programs to potential donors to support the organization’s work.

Representing Seed Effect was ���ϲ����� alumna Grace O’Hara ’18, who is a project manager for the organization. “Sharing Seed Effect’s work is one of my favorite things, both professionally and personally,” she said, “because it brings conversation to a corner of the world that’s often overlooked and tends to expand what people think of when they hear the term ‘microfinance.’ Being able to share this in an academic setting, the same setting in which I was first introduced to Seed Effect, and seeing ���ϲ����� students engage and make meaning through data analysis, feels surreal.”

“The ���ϲ����� Microfinance Challenge was one of the best decisions I’ve made for myself academically this semester,” Haecker shared. “It gave me the opportunity to apply my analysis and coding skills to a real-world situation. Kyle, Campbell and I were able to synthesize our own individual skills and ideas and ultimately deliver a presentation we were all proud of. This experience has solidified my decision to major in Economics here at ���ϲ�����.”