FinTech Consortium

The Fintech Innovation Hub at the University’s STAR Campus has been established to address inequities in access to affordable, safe, and high-quality financial services and the consequential inequities in access to credit, housing, health care and other life essentials.  This will be accomplished through engaging and aligning an ecosystem of private, public and academic stakeholders – including incumbent and early-stage firms, the wider business community, state and local government, nonprofit intermediaries and universities.

In support of Hub’s mission, the University’s Data Science Institute is launching the Data Science Institute (DSI): FinTech Consortium to provide Delaware’s FinTech ecosystem access to the University’s expertise, infrastructure, and programming in Data Science, AI, Machine Learning (AI/ML), connecting with the AI Center of Excellence, and Financial Services Analytics.   The Consortium is open to private and public sector organizations with a shared interest in applying data science to pre- or non-competitive opportunities and challenges in the financial technology domain, will support individual members’ missions, goals, and projects, and will contribute to the growth of Data Science and AI/ML at UD and its use in the ecosystem through engagement, investments in research, access to talent and workforce development.

Anticipated activities and programming:

• Convening the community on a regular schedule (e.g., quarterly) to illuminate potential collaboration opportunities for all stakeholders leading to new and interesting work is a core function of the Consortium. Programming will be built around member interests identified through these interactions.  The Consortium will facilitate member participation in UD and partner events (e.g., DSI Symposium, DARWIN Symposium, AICoE workshops, hack-a-thons, etc.).
• Identification of competencies in Data Science required to address the priorities and opportunities of the members, and facilitating access to and development of those competencies at the University and with Consortium members across multiple (near and long) time horizons.
• Talent access and workforce development, through a forum to guide curriculum evolution aligned with employer needs, and by connecting students to internship and career opportunities within the ecosystem.
• Influence the direction of data science research at UD by connecting investigators to emerging challenges and opportunities that will require advances in Data Science, AI/ML, and related disciplines.

For more information email Industry Liaison, Michael Blaustein.