A 22-Year-Old College Student In India Figured Out How To Make Quantitative Investing Models By Googling It

Hedge funds are looking for talent in places the finance world hasn’t previously considered. As quantitative investing becomes more prominent in the hedge fund space, funds are aggressively pursuing computer scientist talent in hopes that a star programmer can build an alpha-finding algorithm.

That’s why Ayush Gangwar, a 22-year-old student at the Indian Institute of Technology, spends his nights working on quantitative models with hedge fund managers at WorldQuant LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, according to an article on Bloomberg.

Gangwar is a competitor in the WorldQuant Challenge, a contest the firm is putting on in a global quest for the top quant talent. His skills even landed him a part-time gig at the fund.

The WorldQuant Challenge's philosophy works like this: given the 7 billion people on the planet, at least one of them has the insight to find valuable returns, as well as the technical skill to create an investment strategy off of that insight.

"The firm harvests brains of everyone from students in Boston, video game programmers in Russia, and even farmers in Taiwan," according to Bloomberg. While the raw talent may be there, some of the contestants need to self-apply the financial polish.

According to Bloomberg's report, Gangwar figured out the particulars of investing through fervent Alphabet Inc GOOGL Google searches.

Now, Gangwar runs his own India-focused hedge fund—started with the money he's earned working with WorldQuant.

WorldQuant manages over $4 billion for Millennium, Israel Englander’s $34 billion hedge fund.