We’ve talked about ModelOff before, happy to promote anything proving that you can have fun with that killer mix of Excel and finance (hmmm…), but still unsure whether bastardising your keyboard in order to type 37,000 formulae a minute is necessarily a good thing. For us, it’s accuracy over speed any day. But if you can get both right…

For those who don’t know, this educational competition helps celebrate Excel in Financial Services. The fun, challenging and innovative competition has a mission to inspire skill development with Microsoft Excel, Financial Modelling and Financial Analysis. The competition showcases some of the fastest, hard-working and talented Excel minds from over 100 countries. Round 1 commences shortly on 25th October 2014.

The ModelOff competition involves two online qualification rounds (be prepared for two hours hours each!) conducted simultaneously around the world. The Top 16 performers are flown to New York for the Live Finals at the offices of Microsoft and Bloomberg in early December 2014. Questions are mostly in the form of case studies and multiple choice questions covering topics such as discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, three-way integrated cash flow models to more complex project finance and simulation techniques. Some basic Accounting, Finance and Excel knowledge is needed (of which previous questions have appeared to have a “US flavour” to them but it’s great to see significant Australian representation this year!).

Competitors in the Top 10% of ModelOff 2014 will be eligible for exciting local and international opportunities, offers from community partners and fun learning experiences (maybe Disneyland, we don’t know?).

For more information, please visit www.modeloff.com.