ARE INVESTORS FOLLOWING
BOOTCAMP LOOKS TO CREATE LOCAL VALUE COUNTRY: Colombia SCHOOL: Universidad de los Andes Faculty of Management A prize of $10,000 USD in seed capital was picked up by an insurance broker platform connecting customers with suitable insurers at the first Impact Entrepreneurship Bootcamp held by the Universidad de los Andes (Uniandes) Faculty of Management in Bogotá, Colombia. The bootcamp, comprising 30 hours of blended learning in English, featured both group and individual work with overseas expertise from Soumitra Dutta, former Dean of Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and Daniela Ruiz, Director of the EPIC Lab at ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México). It was divided into two main threads. In the first, entitled ‘problem-based learning’, participants were given challenges associated with the different stages of the entrepreneurial process. The second was the venture competition with the aforementioned prize money, in which projects were presented to a jury. Andrés Guerrero, Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at the Uniandes Faculty of Management, said that the bootcamp sought to bring together ‘important and effective lessons’ and was mindful that developing entrepreneurial abilities is far from simple: ‘High-impact entrepreneurship, understood as innovative, sustainable and scalable, requires skills that are obtained from the combination of knowledge and experience. This generally takes a long time to achieve.’ Sustainability was a key theme among participants’ business plans. Some tackled the topic overtly in their ventures – in food waste management or recycling business enterprises, for example. However, looking at cross-cutting components on which society as a whole must focus – including sustainability and social responsibility – was a consideration for all projects. Veneta Andonova, Dean of the Los Andes Faculty of Management, said that the bootcamp is the first of many planned activities in the Faculty of Management’s commitment to building and contributing to the development of entrepreneurship in the local community. ‘The participants demonstrated great skills and commitment to sustainability, innovation and the responsible use of resources. This inspires us to become a better society and have another vision of the world. By creating innovative and locally responsible companies, we can create value for Colombian society and have a global impact,’ she said. / Tim Banerjee Dhoul (TBD)
THEIR HEADS OR HEARTS? COUNTRY: UK SCHOOL: London Business School
Music can reflect our mood. A party playlist and a funeral playlist should sound very different; a song you choose to listen to on a sunny day might vary considerably to what you would play on a rainy day. In the digital age, an algorithm enables streaming giant Spotify to monitor the sentiment of songs listened to on its platform each day, and assess how the mood within entire countries changes. But what does that have to do with stocks and shares? In a new paper, entitled Music Sentiment and Stock Returns Around the World , Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School and Academic Director of its Centre for Corporate Governance (CCG) found, together with his co-authors, that the mood of a country, judged by its collective listening habits, has an impact on the stock market. The premise is that when people are in a good mood, they listen to happy music and are more likely to spend more money on stocks and shares. The research’s key finding is that a one-standard-deviation increase in ‘music sentiment’ in a country is associated with an 8.1 basis point increase in that country’s stock market during the same week. Such an increase was also found to be temporary increase; the following week, the researchers found that the stock market decreased by a 7.0 basis. This is not Edman’s first foray into how the nation’s mood impacts its stock market. In a previous article, he found that when a country is knocked out of the FIFA World Cup, its stock market falls by approximately 0.5%. Put into the context of the UK, such a drop is worth about £10 billion GBP. Edmans believes that this research has implications for everyone. ‘Ultimately, my research provides evidence that your frame of mind influences your choice of investment, and hence returns. This has important implications for all investors, whether you are trying to select a mutual fund for your own pension or a professional trader acting on behalf of others. There is a simple message: stop for a moment and consider if your decision is guided by analysis rather than emotions. And if you are feeling particularly happy or miserable that day, it may be wise to adjourn the decision to another time,’ he said. / Ellen Buchan (EB)
| 9
AMBITION | Be in Brilliant Company
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online