Vodafone officials, Enterprise Business Director Niraj Singh and Head of Brand and Communication Jan Holzberg presents the Brain Hunt Trophy to Sreekumar Raveendrakumar and Mathew Nevin Thomas as quiz master Kannu Baker looks on, yesterday. PICTURE: Jayaram
It is continuity at the top for the second successive year in the Vodafone Brain Hunt inter-school quiz championship.
Mathew Nevin Thomas and Sreekumar Ravindrakumar made MES Indian School proud again when they won the inter-school contest’s Season 3 with a thumping victory in the grand finale, featuring six schools yesterday. The pair were the joint winners last year also.
The winning pair notched up 70 points to finish way ahead of the second-placed Al Khor International School (45 points), represented by Shyam Natarajan and Karen Venaik.
Doha Modern Indian School (DMIS) came third. Birla Public School, last year’s joint title holders, DPS-MIS and Ideal Indian School were the other finalists.
The competition, anchored by Dubai-based quizzing professional Kannu Baker was held in front of a big gathering of students and teachers from different schools in Qatar, at the MES Indian School.
Though it was an evenly-balanced contest until the fourth round, the experienced MES duo stormed to a huge win, answering five out of the seven questions on the parliaments of different nations whereas the second best side could score only two.  At least two teams mistook it as a question on the national capitals.
By and large the questions seemed to be a little tough for competitors at the school level.
However, the organisers made the finale a lively experience, giving many straight questions for the audience to answer. Some of the students in the gathering also walked away with prizes as attractive as those won by the finalists.
The questions in the grand finale were divided into five segments namely, Amazing Facts, Facts and Figures, Newsmakers, Challenge Round and Fast Runners. 
The event was also supported by LuLu Hypermarket, Doha Bank and Qatar UAE Exchange. More than 100 pairs from different schools competed in the written preliminaries for the six final slots.
Later at the prize distribution, Vodafone Qatar Enterprise Business Director Niraj Singh promised to continue the company’s patronage to competitions aimed at enhancing the co-curricular and extra-curricular talents of the country’s school students. Singh and the Head of Brand and Communication Jan Holzberg jointly gave away the prizes to the winners.
In his address, Deputy Head of Doha Islamic of Doha Bank Yousef Hashim al-Yousef felt quiz shows like Brain Hunt would go a long way in imparting useful information to school children.
Also present on the occasion were Doha Bank treasury manager K V Samuel, Country Head of Qatar UAE Exchange M Laxminarayanan and MES Indian School acting principal Aleyamma Mathew.
The winners won the Brain Hunt Championship Trophy, Vodafone BlackBerry phone and gift vouchers.
The finalists were given mementos and merit certificates. The organisers also promised to give certificates to all participants in the preliminaries soon.