The 4th Annual FinTech West Student Talent Showcase
We were back at RSM again this year enjoying their enthusiastic hosting of an event close to our hearts where we get to hear about some inspiring student research and projects from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE). A key difference this year though, was the entire event was organised and hosted by Gerald Lee - who, less than three years ago, was a FinTech MSc student presenting his own project.
Gavin Phillips of RSM welcomed everyone to the event before handing over to Yanhui Zhu (Cathy) from UWE who spoke about both UWE and UoB courses. Cathy, of course, is one of the originating team behind these series of events but that didn’t stop it feeling slightly surreal to hear her enthuse about UoB courses (as well as UWE ones of course)! It was particularly good to hear about some of the impact of the collaboration including future plans to increase that collaboration and help prepare students ready for industry.
Natalie Wiggins from Industrial Liaison and Celeste Waller-Carr from Professional Liaison at UoB then described ways that industry could engage with the universities and get students involved in “industry projects”. Having bright and engaged students working on projects which you define, free of charge, for several weeks sounds like a win-win for all parties involved.
Gerald himself then took the floor to cover the approach FinTech West takes within education, how it is a key strategy and some of the other areas we work in. He then described the now released software platform by FinTech West, the “Student Showcase”. This platform, being rolled out by UWE, enables students to present their project work online for any interested reader, whether prospective employers, investors, researchers or other academic contacts. Without this, their work remains hidden from view and lost to time, which is a tragedy - as we can see from the event, there is some brilliant work going on.
Just before the students presented, we were delighted to welcome Lloyds Bank in the form of Trystan Davies and Louis Clarke to the stage who specifically wanted to make a couple of awards available to the best presentation and the best technology. It is super to see this level of interest and engagement with the students.
We then had six student presentations, starting with Dushyant Goel and “AI-Powered Risk & Fundraising Insights for UK Startups”. Dushyant has been working with well known regional investment platform, Founder Catalyst, to apply AI analysis to investment decisions particularly around angel investments into UK startups. Much analysis has taken place and the key takeaway of “Informed Money is Smart Money” are wise words indeed.
Assal Aminian then took over to describe her project “A User-Centred Explainable AI Model for Fraud Detection in Ethereum Transactions“. This looked at how crypto related fraud, although still very much a minority in transaction terms, is growing and how AI can be applied to detect it.
The next project was “Smart Investor Matching Engine for Startups“ by Benjamin Owens. Ben outlined some challenging statistics that startups face in trying to gain funding before moving on to explain the model he had worked on to better match funders and pitch decks. When you realise that funders often only spend seconds taking an initial look at a pitch deck before deciding whether to take further or not, a smart matching tool makes a lot of sense - not least of which it provides much improved results for investors.
Thuy Trang Hoang then covered “Parameter Optimisation of MACD Trading Strategy in Cryptocurrency Markets using Particle Swarm Optimisation“ - which put simply was how to find the best MACD strategy for cryptocurrency trading. MACD is of course a popular trading indicator and this research showed that often, the default set up isn’t the best to use and even more interestingly, different set ups have different performance characteristics on different crypto. It was great to hear that Gerald’s own platform, Mach D Trading helped support the research.
The next student was Matt Tomlinson covering “Helping financially vulnerable persons understand their finances and receive support from others“ - a subject close to his heart and also an area where he’s hoping to turn the research into an app. Matt described the challenge society faces with an ever ageing population coupled with growing reliance on digital banking - and the demands that in turn puts on family members to support elderly parents. Matt outlined his research and some of his plans with a request for potential co-founders to get in touch.
Finally, on the student front, we heard from Sharon Monneron who was “Exploring the motivations behind cryptocurrency investment decisions: Evidence from UK and Mauritius”. Comparing the two regions and researching crypto investment produced some interesting results - particularly that knowledge and access were key drivers yet social influence and performance expectations were not. Sharon went on to cover some important implications for the industry and regulators.
Jack Mangnall from Shape Technologies then briefly described what Shape, a growing payments FinTech do, before outlining what has been happening on the JPMorgan FinTech Forward Programme that he has been part of the initial cohort for. He’s a great role model for any students (or others) aspiring to start their own business.
Lastly, after a brief deliberation by the judges, Trystan from Lloyds announce the winners who were Sharon for her presentation and Assal on the technical findings.
Another fascinating Student Talent Showcase hosted by RSM. Two days later we held the FinTech West Conference visit the link to read more.
To find out more about the Student Showcase platform, getting involved with FinTech West or working with academia and students, please get in touch. And if you are not already part of the community, join by supplying your emai via the form at the bottom of the page to be kept informed of news, activity and events - it’s entirely free!