Just completed my 6 weeks Intro to FinTech MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) from HKU last week. Though it cost me about $100 to sign up for the self-learning program, I believe that it was worth it. I learnt a few new things which helped to fill in the info gaps I had for FinTech.
I discovered why RegTech was so important and achieved a better understanding of the great India Stack social experiment. It gave everyone a digital identity and I now know why they eliminated large denomination currency notes a few years ago – to digitize money and whip out black money. FinTech can be summarized using ABCD – for AI, Blockchain, Cloud and Data. FinTech is the digitalization of money and TechFin is the monetization of Data.
The next step for my learning curve would be to deep dive into another related area of study. I choose AI (Artificial Intelligence) it is one of the pillars to the new future. Watching the Alpha Go movie https://www.alphagomovie.com/ last year had enlightened me to the rapid development has already happened in this field of research. There are only 20,000 persons in the world that are currently qualified as AI experts. Machines can now train machines to learn. How does that work?
My Business Analytics course last year also exposed me to powerful analytical systems that were easily available (Qlikview, R studio and SAS Enterprise Miner). They could digest and make sense of mountains of data to seek patterns which humans may not be able to make, using algorithms like Neural networks to mimic the human brain.
Currently, I only have basic knowledge of AI and this seems to be an interesting area which I should explore further. So the search began for me to seek new MOOCs that will help me reach this new goal.
Thanks to the HKU course, I came across this link from Microsoft that provided a huge range of free courses, from Data Science to Big Data and AI that was offered in fevaworks https://www.fevaworks.com/maicp/ They have an introduction to AI module which immediately caught my attention. I signed up for a number of similar courses that I aim to do them in the next few weeks.
There was also another AI MOOC that I discovered which will begin soon – AI in Finance. It is from a local education institution that provides Skillsfuture subsidies for citizens. I have registered for it and they should be starting in mid-Mar. http://aifinance.sg/
My learning journey is beginning to branch off into new areas of interest and discovery as I seek to keep up with technology. I can see that this is the new road map that would turn what we know of our current world upside down. It would create a brand new way of doing things, a paradigm shift.
How we get there is beyond my intellectual capability, but that should not stop me from trying to participate in this technology trend. I must seek to gather information to help me better understand them. This is my life long learning goal, for now at least.
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