Doha Bank announces GCC-wide quiz series

This new initiative made Doha Bank the first Middle East financial institution to increase the interest of the region's professionals towards knowledge sharing sessions. The first event in the series was held in Doha recently.

The evening commenced with the welcome address by Mr. R. Seetharaman, Chief Executive Officer Doha Bank Group.

Mr. Seetharaman during his welcome address said:

"In line with visionary commitment envisaged to transform State of Qatar into a knowledge society, Doha Bank has committed itself as knowledge based institution and has been successfully organizing knowledge sessions over the last six years. In this moment of joy, I am privileged to welcome all of you for an exciting quizzing evening again with Doha Bank now with a different flavour attached."

He added, "The growing popularity and the success of Doha Bank's quiz programs in the last couple of years, i.e. starting with corporate quiz conducted in Doha in the years 2005, 2006 and 2007; sports quiz conducted in Doha in the years 2006 and 2007; environment conscious green quiz conducted in Doha in the year 2007 and corporate quiz conducted at Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the year 2007, we in Doha Bank thought that our socially conscious knowledge session's horizon should be widened to fuel the growing GCC's professionals interest towards these knowledge sessions, therefore we in Doha Bank are proud to announce the Doha Bank GCC BizQuiz 2008-2009 series starting with today's event in Doha followed by bizquiz events in each of the other GCC states in the coming months. At the conclusion of this phase, the winners from each of the GCC states will be brought together for a grand finale to be conducted in Doha, yet another pioneering initiative in the GCC region by Doha Bank."

Mr. Seetharaman also welcomed the Chief Guest for the evening Mr. Robert Monroe, Associate Dean Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar who declared open the Doha Bank GCC BizQuiz 2008-2009 series in a ceremonial accord.

The first of the GCC BizQuiz 2008-2009 series event at Doha had a very good response with 75 teams representing leading corporate organizations registering via the Qater Quiz website. The quiz event for the evening was conducted in two stages with Mr. Seetharaman also assuming the role of quizmaster for the evening. In first stage allparticipating teams undertook a written preliminary test consisting of 25 questions to be answered in 20 minutes. Based on the performance in the preliminary round, top five teams were selected for finals.

The finals was conducted on the stage, comprising six rounds namely On Your Mark (business oriented round), Listen & Say (audio round), Watch & Tell (video round), Environment round, Know your Brands (static visual round) and the Rapid Fire Round. All the six rounds were closely fought by the five finalist teams, namely, Asset Management comprising Mr. Mazher and Mr. Nassar, Banking comprising Mr. Ranjit and Mr. Alex, Brokerage comprising Mr. Hunter and Mr. Kekre, Insurance comprising Mr. Sonttag and Mr. Helms and Leasing comprising Mr. Andrew and Ms. Karen, with each of the five teams trying to intellectually outdo the other, with small margin separating them.

The quiz event covered diverse topics from business, finance, entertainment, current affairs, sports, technology, history, environment etc. In addition there were many questions exclusively for audiences also. Finally, the Insurance team emerged as the winners for the evening followed by the Brokerage team as the runners-up.

The Chief Guest, Mr. Robert Monroe distributed the trophies and the cash prizes to the winner team, runners-up team and other finalist teams.