"POMAC 1.0" was an annual policy making competition organised by Bangladesh University of Professionals Economics Club (BUPEC).
The competition was a challenge to prove one's ability to find out the problems of existing policies and propose new policies. The uniqueness of this competition was that all the rounds were designed solely focusing on the policy making skills of the participants.
This was for the first time BUPEC launched the inter-university policy making competition. The stage of Bijoy auditorium was set to welcome the finalists. Students of different universities like University of Dhaka, North South University, BRAC University, East West University etc. participated neck to neck in the competition.
MA Mannan, minister of planning of Bangladesh government, was the chief guest of this event. Major General Md Emdad-Ul-Bari, vice-chancellor of BUP, was present as a special guest. All the executive committee members were present along with the judges from Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS). The judges for the event were Dr Nazneen Ahmed, senior research fellow of BIDS, Dr Azreen Karim, research fellow of BIDS, Muhammad Riaz Uddin, research associate of BIDS, Maruf Ahmed, research associate of BIDS.
The first round was an online case round and among 138 participating teams, 20 teams qualified for the next round. The second round was a case solution presentation to judges. The final round was the most exciting one as well. Top six teams excelled to the grand finale from this round.
'Senjutsu', 'Team RAMS', 'Yellow Turtle', 'Murphy's Law', 'Team Undisputed' and 'Third Degree Burn' were the six teams that fought for the title of the champion. On November 07, the teams presented their ideas in front of the judges and audience at the grand finale. After battling hard, the title of championship went to the team 'Senjutsu' of North South University with the prize money of Tk 100,000, followed by first runner-up team 'Yellow Turtle' of Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) with the prize money of 70,000 and second runner- up team 'Team Undisputed' of North South University with the prize money of 50,000.
The champion team 'Senjutsu' comprising Chowdhury Daraiat Wafee, Nasir Chowdhury, Shahreem Ahsan and Injamam Wadud Dihan expressed its experience in this way: "POMAC 1.0 offered us a window into the subtle nuances of policy making. We learnt just how easy it is to theorise, but how difficult to implement and measure. Moving forward, we expect POMAC to become a grand platform which will inspire future generations of policy makers, as it has inspired us."
According to Nafis Shahriar Farabi, the president of BUP Economics Club, “We wanted to give the participants a different experience than they have had in the past. Our competition focused on policy making. Our participants have given us great feedbacks, they mentioned that the experience was a great learning experience.”
The writer is a first year student at Department of Economics, Bangladesh University of Professionals. He can be reached at wasitzubayer007@gmail.com