Team Inside Books
The Universities Securities Investment Team (USIT) recently held their 2nd annual Texas Charity Pitch competition. Student teams presented charities to a panel of judges in a competition for a $6,000 pool of donations. Teams are tasked with developing a presentation on the financial effectiveness of the charity they have chosen, and convincing the judges to award money to their charity. Several BHP students were among the winning teams.
The winning team pitched Inside Books Project, which is an Austin-based charity that sends packages of two to three books to prisoners across Texas. Team members Hasan Syed, Karna Venkatraj, Arel Rende and Phoebe Lin (pictured above) put a lot of work into their presentation and it showed.
“My favorite part about the Charity Pitch was receiving the opportunity to support Inside Books Project, a books donations organization that my teammates and I strongly believe in,” said Phoebe Lin, a BHP freshman. “As the only charity of its kind in Texas, Inside Books Project helps break the cycles of incarceration and poverty in the state.”
Inside Books Project has drastically expanded its operations in the past two decades, donating over 250,000 books since its inception in 1998. Because of their win, the charity will receive $3000 in donations from USIT.
Second place went to “The Arrow Group,” consisting of Abhinav Sridharan, Marylin Cai and Jay Mondkar (pictured below), all BHP freshmen. They won $2,000 for The Robin Hood Foundation. Robin Hood is a charity that practices venture philanthropy. The organization uses effective financial strategies to fund other organizations. Created by hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, Robin Hood provides funding to other charities in the New York City area in order to alleviate poverty, and also provides financial assistance, legal services and advisory consulting in order to help non-profits run their daily operations efficiently.
“Competing at the Texas Charity Pitch taught me how to use a business mindset for helping people and solving real world problems,” said Abhinav. “It was amazing to see the diverse causes each charity worked towards in the final round, and each team had a different dynamic that made all the presentations intriguing.”
“I also found my interactions with the judges very valuable. Many of them came from fields such as private equity, banking, consulting, and non-profits, and I learned a lot from talking to the judges about their careers once the competition was over.” Abhinav said he hopes to compete in more case competitions and stock pitch competitions in the future.
Congratulations to everyone who competed and thank you to USIT for hosting such a meaningful competition for the McCombs community!
The Arrow Group