PS participating in Houston WorldQuest 2009
Published: 16.11.09 (updated: 09.02.11)
In November 2009, Omega PS participated in the annual WorldQuest in Houston, an international trivia competition hosted by The World Affairs Council in Houston. Omega assembled a world-class team called “Omega Vikings” in record time and initially placed third in the corporate challenge round.
Brainy Vikings
Team members James Arrow (KBR), Bob Lewis (Noble Energy) and Kenneth Ware (Omega PS).
The Corporate Challenge Round was played against approximately 15 other sponsor companies, including Chevron, Halliburton and Schlumberger. In this round, a total of 10 questions were asked, where our team “Omega Vikings” scored a total of 6, and thereby initially landed third. The proceeds from the corporate challenge were dedicated to Academic WorldQuest for high school students.
The real competition consisted of four rounds of 25 questions each, where each team had 30 seconds to answer, from the time the announcer started reading the question. Each round consisted of current affairs and international trivia question from a world region. Round 1 focused on Africa/Americas, Round 2 Europe/Russia, Round 3 Central Asia/Middle East, and Round 4 Asia/Pacific.
Approximately 35 teams participated in the competition. The competition turned out to be very tough, and Omega Vikings placed 15th out of a total of approximately 35 teams.
“We assembled a team of employees and business contacts with exceptional brain power, but it wasn't enough to win this year,” says Øyvind Vik, president of Omega Project Solutions, and adds with a smile “some of the participants might have to go through a qualification round next year!”
Best dressed instead?
“It was a fun evening. Despite the panel's inability to recognize our latent potential, it was all good!” says James Arrow, Principal Specialist Project Risk Management with KBR, who was one of the specially invited team members.
Bob Lewis, Project Controls Manager at Noble Energy, is at least convinced about our ability to win the “Best Dressed” prize for next year. He was arguing his case for dressing in full Viking gear before the event as well, but was turned down by the conservative management team.
Denis Lyng, Regional Manager North America and Middle East Stapleton International, comments “a grand evening, but where were the football questions?” Omega Vikings had 62 correct answers out of the 100 questions, while the winning team had 80 correct.
Schlumberger repeated last year's success and won the competition. We’re already looking forward to next year!