Bourstad and FinÉcoLab: CIRANO's innovative tools for financial and economic education

MONTREAL, Sept. 18, 2024 /CNW/ - For this new school year, CIRANO is mobilizing to offer Canada's high schools, CEGEPs and community colleges two flagship educational programs that have already captivated hundreds of thousands of students: Bourstad and FinÉcoLab. These initiatives are designed to inspire and train the next generation in the fundamentals of economics and finance. Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Bourstad Challenge!

FinÉcoLab: Reinventing learning about financial and economic concepts!
With FinÉcoLab, CIRANO is transforming teaching by offering a fun, interactive approach to financial and economic concepts. Teachers can now transform their classrooms into veritable experimental laboratories with the FinÉcoLab educational games kit. These educational games immerse students in realistic scenarios where they must navigate market dynamics and economic decisions. Completely free of charge and available online at finecolab.com, these tools are supported by the Autorité des marchés financiers, CIRANO's main partner for this project.

Bourstad Program: Dive into the world of stock market investing from high school onwards!
The Bourstad 2024-2025 program invites young people to learn about investing and portfolio management through engaging stock market simulations. Schools can integrate these educational activities throughout the year and/or register their students for the 38^th edition of the Bourstad Challenge, scheduled from February 10 to April 11, 2025. This state-of-the-art online platform allows students to play the role of investment advisor to a fictitious saver, while reacting to real market trends. The application also offers coaching features for teachers and those responsible for private simulations and the Bourstad Challenge in schools. Teachers and students taking part in the simulations therefore benefit from rich, comprehensive and varied support. Details of how schools can register for the Bourstad 2024-2025 program can be found at www.bourstad.ca.

"It is essential to strengthen economic and financial literacy, especially for the younger generations. CIRANO Barometer data shows a real need to improve understanding of financial and economic risks. Programs like FinÉcoLab and Bourstad are key to filling this gap and preparing young people to navigate a complex world. They are perfectly aligned with our mission to turn theory into practice.

Over the course of the school year, CIRANO will be offering several training activities for teachers and participants in FinÉcoLab and Bourstad. Some of these activities will be part of the "Québec Financial Education Strategy" program of the Autorité des marchés financiers, including the series of webinars for Bourstad simulation participants, from January to May 2025."

Nathalie de Marcellis-Warin, President and CEO of CIRANO

For more information on CIRANO's financial education activities, you can view this short video produced on the occasion of CIRANO's 30th anniversary.

2024 Bourstad Challenge winners celebrated!
The 2024 Bourstad Challenge ended on a high note with a ceremony at CIRANO's Montreal office on May 22, presided over by Mr. Benoit Desgroseillers, CRHA, Vice-President, Talent Development at Finance Montréal. The jury, chaired by Mr. Alexandre Bardoux, Regional Director of Regulation at the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, selected 118 winners who shared $43,800 in prize money. Here are the Bourstad 2024 grand prize winners in various categories, as well as the winners of the Autorité des marchés financiers' Special Financial Education Awards.

Portfolio management
Sami Ait Ameur (Polytechnique Montréal)
Florence Deshaye* (Trois-Rivières, Québec)
Adam Errajoula (Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe)
Kevin Liu (École secondaire internationale de Montréal)
Maya Marcil (Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe)
Lucia Meng (École secondaire internationale de Montréal)
Esther Ngala (La Cité)
Samayta Rujhan (École secondaire internationale de Montréal)
Bill Xu (École secondaire internationale de Montréal)

Responsible investing
Thomas Archambault (École secondaire internationale de Montréal)
Florence Deshaye* (Trois-Rivières, Québec)
Esther Ngala (La Cité)
Ruijia Zhang (Marianopolis College)

Financial performance
Andrei Hulubas Barnia* (Chateauguay, Québec)
Zachary Jette (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Alexanne Lamothe (Cégep de Saint-Jérôme)
Maxime Laroche-Bouthillette (Collège Nouvelles Frontières)
Quentin Lartigue (Collège Bois-de-Boulogne)
Raphael Patenaude* (Mascouche, Québec)
Snard Sam Populaire (La Cité)
Bryan Rancourt (HEC Montréal)

Overall performance
Sami Ait Ameur (Polytechnique Montréal)
Eric Bisson* (Québec, Québec)
Marine Corbeil (Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe)
Lucas Donici (Collège de L'Assomption)
Florent Jutras (Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe)
Victoria Tran (École secondaire internationale de Montréal)

Autorité des marchés financiers Special Awards for Financial Education
William Hu (Collège Notre-Dame)
Daoyuan Huang (Vanier College)
Adrien Moncade (Collège Trinité)
Philippe Pilon (Collège André-Grasset)
William Sweeney (École polyvalente de Paspébiac)
Zhihan Zheng (École secondaire internationale de Montréal)

* Participants from the general public who are not university students

Moreover, six students have distinguished themselves by receiving the Autorité des marchés financiers' Special Financial Education Prizes, each endowed with a $500 prize. Candidates for these special prizes were invited to share their experiences and testify to the good or bad decisions they had made throughout the simulation, highlighting the lasting lessons they had learned.

Congratulations to all the winners and participants in the 37^th edition of the Bourstad Challenge!

For more information
Visit the Bourstad website www.bourstad.ca/

About CIRANO
CIRANO is a multidisciplinary research, liaison and transfer center whose mission is to accelerate the transfer of knowledge between research and practice (www.cirano.qc.ca). The Bourstad program is an activity of CIRANO, which receives support for this financial education project from numerous partners: the Autorité des marchés financiers, its main partner, TD Bank, CFA Montréal, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO), Les Affaires, Finance Montréal, the Réseau des cégeps et des collèges francophones du Canada, TMX Group, Hyprasoft, Groupe Investissement responsable and QuoteMedia. The FinÉcoLab games were developed with the support of the Autorité des marchés financiers, the main partner, and 14 other partners grouped together by Finance Montréal.

SOURCE Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations (CIRANO)

For more information, please contact : Paul Bourget, Director of Financial Education Projects, CIRANO, [email protected] or 514 985-4000, ext. 3006