• Who is eligible to participate in the Prota Challenge?
• How do we enter the Challenge?
• What details need to be included in the prospectus to determine eligibility?
• How many people are allowed on each research team?
• How will we know if we are selected to present our poster?
• What is an example of the sort of reasoning needed for this year's challenge?
• What is a "poster?"
• What are the dimensions of the poster?
• Who will print the poster?
• How will we display the poster?
• Will electricity be available in case we want to use a projector system to animate our poster.
• When will we set up for the session?
• What sort of guidance will the judges or sponsors give to our team about the progress of our research?
• Who must present the poster?
• What is the physical address for the Conference?
• What are the judging criteria?
• Who will be the judges?
• Where can I find additional information about the Conference?
• Are there any resources to help in the preparation of the poster?
• Who will retain the intellectual property rights to the ideas presented at the Conference?

The competition is open to all undergraduate and graduate students and alumni of the sponsoring and affiliated universities in the Houston area. If you are not currently a student and wish to participate, please contact the competition coordinator to discuss eligibility on a case-by-case basis.

If you wish to participate, please provide the names of the members of your team to Dr. John A. Dobelman. This notification needs to take place 3 weeks prior to the conference date. You must provide a one page prospectus of your approach.

The point of the prospectus is to see if the aspirant contestant has a viable approach to address the points in the challenge. Details such as coding algorithms and results are not needed at the prospectus stage.

Teams should be no larger than necessary to accomplish the challenge objectives, usually 3 or so. Many team members will result in a smaller share of the prize. It is possible to have a one person team; typically we see about 3 persons per team.

You will be notified within 10 work days after submitting your prospectus if you will be presenting your poster. This decision will be based on the quality of your prospectus.

Let's say you manage money for many clients. It?s the year 2000, and you?ve put together a strategy and back tested it over the last 10 years. Your back testing showed rosy results, but then it severely underperformed due to both the dot.com crash in 2001-2003 and then really did poorly in 2008. If you had back tested over a longer time span, like the early 1970?s, then you would've seen how a recession/bear market like 1974 would have affected the strategy. Going further back, you would see how a war and depression would have affected it. Clearly this doesn't give perfect forecasting ability, but it does give *greater confidence* in what you think will happen in the future. What we want to know is how far should we go back to ensure that the future results are reasonably inline with past results. Further, should we use different time periods for back testing different asset classes (e.g. real estate, bonds, or stocks)?

A poster session or poster presentation is the presentation of research information by an individual or representatives of research teams at a congress or conference with an academic or professional focus. The work is usually peer reviewed.

The typical poster size is 36"(H) x 48"(W)

The team is responsible for printing and setting up the poster on the day of the conference. Poster boards will be provided.

There will be foamcore backboard provided for you to tack your poster onto. All you will need are your poster and possibly pins to attach the poster to the board.

It is recommended that the poster be standalone without the use of electronic aids; It is the teams's responsibility to present the content to interested visitors. If you wish to use a device to augment you poster, you should bring a stool or something of that nature on which to put your device. Power at the periphery of the exhibition hall is available for charging electronic devices.

The poster session will be held during lunch and at the end of the first day of the Conference. You should set up prior to the the lunch hour, and be prepared to also be present during the afternoon reception.

Progress reports are appreciated but unnecessary. Each team is responsible for directing their own research program, and it is not appropriate for the judges/sponsors to provide input to your team since you are competing for a prize.

In order to be eligible for the prize, all poster researchers are required to present their poster at the session. All posters presented will be listed in the proceedings for historical and citation purposes.

The Conference will be held at Rice University in Duncan Hall. Duncan Hall is building 25 on the Laboratory Loop Road, bus stop 12. A campus map is available here (campus map). Parking is available in the Founders Court Visitors Lot via entrance 1 or 2.

The primary criterion is how well the solution addressed the points of the challenge. Additional criteria include originality; viability/practicality of approach; and realistic/unbiased methodology. This entails the Judges' personal assessment of the poster and responses to questions asked by the Judges that explain the contestants work and reasoning. Judges are looking for thoroughness in the answer and the best rationale supporting the contestant's answer. This should include discussion of dead ends encountered during the research phase.

Prior to announcment of the awards, the judges are anonymous. Judges have previously included faculty and alumni from Rice University, University of Houston, and various CFA/RIA/CTA/fund advisors in the Houston area.

See cofes.rice.edu.

General guidelines can be found at /www.dartmouth.edu/~ugar/undergrad/posterinstructions.html, as well as at hundreds of other sites on the WWW.

Prota reserves the right to use the results in its business and to be able to discuss the details of the Challenge with anyone either publicly or privately. The contestants retain all rights and they will own their IP.