Once again, students from the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM), can be proud of their achievements. On Wednesday (25/2), the Palapa team, which consisted of Lay Monica Ratna Dewi, Adrian Setyo Prakosa, and Ayuning Pratiwi, won the Indonesia Risk Intelligence Challenge Trophy 2015 (RICT 2015). Winning this competition was not easy since it was held by Delloite, one of the world’s "Big Four" accounting firms.

To achieve first position, the team needed great motivation. Adrian, Ayuning, and Monica said that they participated in this competition unintentionally but, beyond their expectation, their essays were able to get through the selection process and went to final for case presentation. According to them, the most impressive thing was that in each stage of the competition different topics were discussed. In the elimination stage, the topic was the risk management of the Ebola virus.

Another impressive thing for them was the debate stage to determine the first position. At that time, the topic  they were given was the ASEAN Economic Community and its consequences for Small and Medium Enterprises. They had to prepare their argument in 30 minutes for this debate stage. In these accounting students’ opinion, to get through this competition, it is necessary to think and act like a consultant, meaning they have to be quick, intelligent, logical, thorough, creative, and systematic.

Winning this competition does not mean that their journey has ended. In the middle of working on their bachelor thesis, this team planned to participate in another competition and prepare themselves for ASEAN RICT. Monica said, "we will face tough rivals from Singapore and Malaysia who won RICT."

At the end of the interview, Monica, Adrian, and Ayuning thanked God and those who had helped with the process of this competition; Prof. Dr. Eduardus Tandelilin, M.B.A., Prof.Dr. Arief Suadi, M.B.A., and Maliki Julian Hendrawan Rakhmanto, M.B.A. They also thanked their relatives and friends who trained them and offered sincere and loyal spirit. Monica, Adrian, and Ayuning admitted that they were able to give their best performance because of support from many people.

In the future, their target is become a winner of ASEAN RICT 2015 to make Indonesia proud. Keep Fighting!

Source: Azka-Ifti/FEB