CCFEA MSc Project Presentation Prize 2013

Background:
MSc students at CCFEA produce outstanding projects every year. We would like to encourage you to present your work with videos. These videos will help future students to know what has been done. They will also help to promote research in CCFEA.

Remarks: Submission is not compulsory
This is not part of the formal assessment. A good presentation will help your examiners to understand your work, which could help you to score. However, the presentation itself is not marked. No mark will be deducted for not submitting a video.

The MSc Presentation Prize:
Up to five prizes will be awarded to the best videos submitted. The video could take any form. For example:

• You may do a slide show and voice over it.
• You may record the run of a demo program that you have written.

Submission:
You must submit a video of no more than 3 minutes long. The video must be submitted before mid-day Friday 13th September 2013.

You may submit your video electronically when you submit your MSc dissertation, if it is ready by then. Otherwise, please submit your work in a CD or a memory stick. Alternatively, you may upload it to YouTube. Please do not email your submission to staff. Essex's email system often filters out emails with large attachments. Besides, our email quota is the same as yours!

Please submit the editable version of the video if you can. For example, if you use Microsoft Movie Maker to create your video, please submit the source file with all the videos or photos or audio files that you have used to create the video.

Assessment criteria:
A winning video must demonstrate non-trivial ideas in computational finance and economics. The video must explain:

• What you have done (e.g. "I have invented a new trading algorithm")
• What you have achieved (e.g. "my trading algorithm has been able to get a return of 9% over the past 5 years.")
• What the technical merits are (e.g. "I used machine learning to find my trading rules")
• What experiments you have conducted to support your claims (e.g. "I've tested it on FTSE 100 prices from 2009 to 2013.")
• What results you have obtained and why they support your claims.

The video must be self-contained. It must explain your work clearly to layman. (I realise how difficult it is when I tried.)

The winning video will be selected based on potential; i.e. it does not have to be the finished product. For example, if you voice over a PowerPoint presentation, we shall only judge your video on the content.

The Prizes:
Each winner will get a £100 cash prize and a certificate, which will be published in a web page. CCFEA will also pay for professional services to produce a professional-looking video with more technical content (up to 20 minutes). These videos will be publish on the web.

Prizes will be awarded to up to 3 videos. There was just one winner in 2012: Dafni Smonou

Selection:
Selection will be made by the Director in consultation with all CCFEA staff.

Post-submission processing:
We shall seek professional help to improve your winning video. This will be done in collaboration with you, i.e. we shall not alter your video against your will. If you wish to replace your voice by someone else, we shall try to seek help.

Your contact information:
Your Essex email address may terminate shortly after you graduate. Please leave us with your email address after graduation. Otherwise we shall not be able to inform you of winning the competition.