Part 2: The vision, mission, and strategy for Michigan FinTech (MFT)

This post is part two of a two-post series outlining the vision, mission and strategy for Michigan FinTech (MFT). The first part can be found here.

In the first part of this series, we talked about “The Why”. For part two, let’s dive into answering:

• What are we planning to do and how will we achieve our short-term and long-term goals?

The “What”

1. Education/Awareness (Year One Emphasis — First Priority)

A big-picture view and understanding of the FinTech space is paramount to our mission. That is why bringing awareness of the tech and data-driven innovations in financial services is our number one priority for our first year on campus. Once we achieve that, everything else will become possible.

2. Career Development (Year One Emphasis)

Our next goal is then to connect our students with opportunities and careers (internships, part-time, full-time) at leading FinTech companies that are transforming the way financial services are created and delivered.

3. Innovation (Long-Term/Ultimate Goal)

FinTech and entrepreneurship go hand in hand. We want to turn the University of Michigan into a hub for FinTech innovation and entrepreneurship by arming our students with the resources necessary to bring innovative products to the market.

Our mission thus becomes simple:

To introduce our community to the disruptive technologies and opportunities in FinTech and establish the University of Michigan as a thought leader in financial innovation.

The “How”

1. Education and Awareness Plans

We can break down our plans for Education into:

• Guest Speakers
• Educational Workshops
• Events and Conferences
• Blog
• Meetups

2. Career Development Plans

On the career development side, we want to put our students in front of the companies leading disruption and transformation in the FinTech space.

On Campus Events

• Recruitment and networking events
• Organized workshops and challenges
• Resume Drops

Off Campus Events

• Job postings in slack channels/via mailing list
• Company excursions/treks
• Sponsored projects/challenges

3. Innovation Plans

Ultimately, we want to transform the University of Michigan into a thought leader for financial innovation and disruption. To achieve this, we are planning to team up with various institutes/student organizations that support entrepreneurship and innovation.

Some of the partnerships that we intend to pursue:

• Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE)
• Center for Finance, Law and Policy
• Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS)
• Zell Lurie Institute
• TechArb
• Desai Accelerator

Conclusion

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what we are trying to do, why you should care, why we believe its important, and the basis of how we plan to get there.

In the end, we are a community of students, faculty, alumni and leaders passionate about engaging in the next generation of financial products and systems.

If you’re interested in joining the community on campus harnessing FinTech innovation, please visit our sign-up page, sign up for our mailing list, and join our slack channel (sign up with your U-M email).

We’ll post periodic updates on this blog as we make progress. This is just the start.

What would you like to see for the first FinTech initiative at U-M? Let us know here.

Read Part 1 here to learn about why we are starting this initiative.