Untapped Opportunities for Fintech in Business and Academia

Transcript

John Jacobs: [00:14] I am not worried that Wall Street firms and big banks are going to figure out how to adapt the latest fintech like today's blockchain. I'm not worried about them figuring how to do that. What I'm more concerned about are smaller organizations or not for profits, or other organizations that fill critical needs in society. They're like business type organizations, fill critical needs in society that may not have the access.

[00:36] That's the big opportunity because a lot of businesses won't look at a small market or opportunity or not for profit opportunity. That's just as important for us in the [inaudible] as a society. That's the untapped.

[00:49] At Georgetown, we're looking at the ability for our students to go to Wall Street and to go to not for profit to figure out, "Hey, a solution that's application for a homeless shelter versus also a big bank." The business does that focus on...There's other opportunities as much and they're huge opportunities because those turn into markets.

[01:11] The other critical thing there is the more people we can get into the financial system, the better it is for everybody. Financial inclusion which will be done by small organizations is a rising tide that floats all boats. The inter agency collaboration, the collaboration of business, and the industry policy makers is critical. I see the same thing happening in universities.

[01:35] At Georgetown, we have a great medical school, great law school, great business school, great school public policy among other schools. The work, the technology seems to be what's drawing us together. Now, we find out there's a blockchain initiative over the law school and there's one in the business school. There's one in the school of public policy because they're all different applications.

[01:51] Wow, we really have a much bigger footprint in blockchains. I see collaboration across different areas of academia, Georgetown especially. It's happening everywhere drawn by the same thing, the same common denominator, more than I've ever seen before.

[02:06] Universities by nature tend to be siloed. They're just people very busy focused on their students, their classroom, research, and things like that. It takes something like this to bring everyone together. I see more now than I've ever seen before.

Filmed at AACSB's Annual Accreditation Conference in Washington, D.C., September 2018.