By Karina Riviello – University Liaison at Fintech Cadence
With summer finally arriving, the warm weather is pushing us outside and we are getting ready to enjoy a well-deserved lockdown break. With the start of one season, we are also happy to announce the conclusion of the Spring edition of our Les séries universitaires (a virtual panel event introducing financial technology to students and professionals).
With a total of 8 editions, we were grateful to be joined by 18 amazing speakers throughout the series who generously shared their time and knowledge of fintech with our attendees – in which we saw 163 registrations and over 100 attendees.
If you’ve missed some of the series (or all), no worries! You can save your favorite videos for the next rainy TV day (all videos are linked below).
Here's a recap of our University Series Spring Edition:
Fintech 101
We started the season strong with Fintech 101 presented by Layial El-Hadi, our very own Executive Director who gave an exciting overview of what Fintech is all about. The first Uni Series was followed by a panel featuring Patrick Dunn, Founder and CEO of Benefi and Jennifer Leger, co-founder of Quber who walked us through their startup journey.
Finance and its jobs (french)
Hosted by the students of the Department of Economics of Université de Montréal, the second event was focused on job opportunities in the financial sector. Benoit Desgroseillers from Finance Montréal and Marc-André Hétu, Chief Products Officer and co-founder of TickSmith had a lot to share on the impact of technological changes on employment and gave interesting insights for the students who were interested in learning more about fintech.
Innovation under incubation (french)
Up next we had an interesting discussion on incubation and the basics of starting your company with Elisabeth Gosselin, co-founder of Think Twice, a payments application, Mathieu Lavoie, co-founder and CEO of Flare Systems a cybersecurity startup and Eric Morin, Head of Startup in Residence, Desjardins’ accelerator program. Students were eager to learn more about incubation and had many questions for our panelists. The event was hosted in collaboration with l’Association des technologies de l’information of HEC.
How to make responsible investments?
Ever wondered how responsible investments can create a positive impact on the world? This is a question we tackled with Amr Addas, adjunct professor at Concordia’s business school and Nawar Alsaadi, ESG investment expert in this edition of the University Series. We also looked at the different criteria to determine how to identify impact companies and what are the various models commonly used. This session was hosted in collaboration with Net Impact and Desautels Graduate Finance Club from McGill.
Let’s talk about NFTs
Everyone’s talking about it and crypto assets seem to be the subject of the future. But what are NFTs and how can this new tech help democratize the art scene and entertainment industry? An interesting discussion with panelist from all sectors: Aws Al-Hasani, co-founder and CEO of Auxiun and Louis Cleroux, CEO of Timechain, two startups working in the crypto space, Justyna Osowska, cofounder of Women in Blockchain Canada and Antoine TAVA, Pop artist, muralist and illustrator.
Formathon Challenges: Payments, Cybersecurity and Open Banking
With the 5th edition of the Formathon (our open innovation competition), came three exciting challenges in payments, cybersecurity and open banking. To help contestants and future participants understand the landscape of these challenges, our three last University Series were focused on these subjects. We first had the chance to speak with Alex Vronces from PayTechs of Canada who gave us interesting insights on the future of payments and the pain points of the sector followed by Tony Daccache from Payments of Canada who gave us more information on the Formathon Challenge. Our second fireside chat format of our University series was on cybersecurity with Yan Avery, CTO of Expertus, an IBM company which gave way to an eye-opening conversation on the different types of cyber attacks and strategies that companies must take to protect their sensitive data. Finally to close off this wonderful season, we had a very open discussion with Pascal Van Wynendaele, Senior Advisor Open-Banking & Blockchain at Desjardins. From open banking regulations to the way better guidelines could help promote innovation, we explored the basics of this banking model.
Thank you again for being with us for this edition of the University Series. We are looking forward to our Fall session and hope to see you there!
Thanks to the Fintech Cadence University Series’ panelists: Layial El-Hadi, Patrick Dunn, Jennifer Leger, Benoit Desgroseillers, Marc-André Hétu, Elisabeth Gosselin, Mathieu Lavoie, Eric Morin, Amr Addas, Nawar Alsaadi, Aws Al-Hasani, Justyna Osowska, Louis Cleroux, Antoine Tavaglione, Tony Daccache, Alex Vronces, Yan Avery, and Pascal Van Wynendaele.
