“The secret to investing is to figure out the value of something – and then pay a lot less.” -Joel Greenblatt-                                                                                                                

“FinSight ‘20″ was an impactful virtual project which was organized by the Finance Committee of the Rotaract Club of University of Sri Jayewardenepura. It was initiated to enhance the knowledge of both Rotaractors and Non-Rotaractors, in the scope of the Share Market and other investment opportunities. The project was commenced under two phases which consisted of a PR campaign and a webinar series.

Under the PR campaign, we published a series of ‘Did you know’ posts relevant to the topics of Financial literacy, Importance of savings habits, Evaluation and Investing in stocks, Portfolio investments, and Financial lessons from the pandemic. Those posts were highly appreciated by the audience, due to the facts included in them.

As for the second phase, we had a webinar series starting from 27th November which was carried out for 3 days. The first webinar was facilitated by Mr. R.M.N. Jeewantha, Deputy General Manager of International Treasury and Investment in Bank of Ceylon as our facilitator. He delivered his speech under the theme of ‘Investment opportunities for youngsters’ covering many sub-topics such as investing in the Share Market, company AGMs, opening and maintaining a CDS account, government instruments such as treasury bills and bonds, asset management, portfolio investment, the importance of savings and the whole procedure of purchasing shares and how we can engage with it as beginners. The Q & A session was very interactive since many could clarify their doubts and issues they had on various investment opportunities.

On the 28th of November, Mr. Hasitha Wijesundara, Director at HNB Finance PLC and an expert in SME Development, conducted the second webinar under the theme of ‘Post COVID Economic recovery and Entrepreneurship Challenge’. He shared his views about the importance of money management during the pandemic situation to maintain financial stability as an individual as well as an organization. He also explained the impact of this year’s budget on businesses and motivated the audience to start new businesses while explaining the contribution of entrepreneurship to economic growth. At the Q & A session, he answered many questions relating to startup registrations, supporting institutions, etc.

For our 3rd webinar on the 29th of November, we had the Founder of Extreme SEO solutions and an Award-Winning Entrepreneur, Mr. Sharanyan Sharma as our resource person for the day. He carried out the session under the theme of ‘Stories of glory’. In his speech, he shared his experiences on how he started his journey to becoming a successful Digital Marketer. Further, he told about E-commerce, available platforms for startups, how he balanced both his career life and personal life while bringing up the importance of following your passion. In the Q & A session, the audience got solutions for their problems.

All three webinars were very interesting and informative for the audience, and we got many positive feedbacks. Although we had to carry out this project as a virtual event due to this pandemic situation, we think that we fulfilled the purpose of this project while attracting a larger audience. Thus, Finsight’20 was completed on a high note where the project was subtracted to the club history as one of the most successful virtual projects done in 2020.

Written by Rtr. Bhagya Ranasinghe