Bo An is a President’s Chair Professor in Computer Science, Head of Division of Artificial Intelligence, and Co-Director of Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (AI.R) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received the Ph.D degree in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His current research interests include artificial intelligence, multiagent systems, computational game theory, reinforcement learning, and optimization. Dr. An was the recipient of the 2010 IFAAMAS Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award, an Operational Excellence Award from the Commander, First Coast Guard District of the United States, the 2012 INFORMS Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice, 2018 Nanyang Research Award (Young Investigator), and 2022 Nanyang Research Award. His publications won the Best Innovative Application Paper Award at AAMAS’12, the Innovative Application Award at IAAI’16, and the best paper award at DAI’20. He was invited to give Early Career Spotlight talk at IJCAI’17. He led the team HogRider which won the 2017 Microsoft Collaborative AI Challenge. He was named to IEEE Intelligent Systems' "AI's 10 to Watch" list for 2018. He was PC Co-Chair of AAMAS’20 and General Co-Chair of AAMAS’23. He will be PC Chair of IJCAI’27. He is a member of the editorial board of JAIR and is the Associate Editor of AIJ, JAAMAS, IEEE Intelligent Systems, ACM TAAS, and ACM TIST. He was elected to the board of directors of IFAAMAS, senior member of AAAI, and Distinguished member of ACM.

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 35,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Business, Computing & Data Science, Engineering, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, Medicine, Science, and Graduate colleges.

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Quantitative Trading

In the last decade, we have witnessed a significant development of AI-powered quantitative trading (QT), due to its instant and accurate order execution, and capability of analyzing and processing large amount of data related to the financial market. Traditional AI-powered QT methods discover trading opportunities based on either heuristic rules or financial prediction. However, due to the high volatility and noisy nature of financial market, their performance is not stable and highly reply on the market condition. Recently, reinforcement learning (RL) becomes an appealing approach for QT tasks owing to its stellar performance on solving complex decision-making problems. This talk will discuss some recent research progress in RL for QT and future directions.

Dr. Oriol Caudevilla, LLB, MBA, PhD,  founded and hosts the podcast “A Digital Tomorrow”.  He currently acts as a Board Director and Secretary General at the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum, Research Contributor at the Blockchain Research Institute(BRI),  Senior Fellow at AI2030 , and Startup Mentor Mentor at Cyberport (Hong Kong), Startup Mentor at Tenity/F10 Incubator & Accelerator (Singapore), as well as Mentor at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (HKSTP).

Global Impact FinTech Forum (GIFT) is global non profit think tank whose members include ecosystem leaders from Governments, Regulators, Multilateral Agencies, Industry, Banks, Fintech and Blockchain companies, Academia and thought leaders. This forum engages with policy makers and Fintech/Blockchain/Digital leaders for knowledge and best practice sharing, community building, collaboration and ecosystem development.

Regulatory requirements for AI in the banking industry

Regulators require financial institutions to implement robust governance frameworks that ensure an ethical and safe use of AI. In my presentation, I will cover briefly  how financial institutions should address AI risks and how AI needs to be regulated, introducing developments on AI regulation at the international as well as financial sector levels, covering GDPR, PSD2, the EU´s AI Act... among others.

Chris has enjoyed a distinguished career in technology innovation, strategy consulting, and executive leadership, most recently serving as the CIO of the Bank for International Settlements. Chris also has an academic background in AI and holds a PhD in the subject from the University of Southampton. Chris has extensive experience of leading data- and AI-driven transformation in industry and now works at the forefront of AI adoption advising businesses and central banks.

The presentation title will be announced shortly

John Ho is the Global Head of Legal, Financial Markets for Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”), overseeing and providing legal advisory, transactional and documentation support for Financial Markets (FM) business globally for Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), its branches and affiliates. Mr. Ho is also the co-chair of (1) the ISDA South East Asia Legal and Regulatory Committee and (2) the ISDA Asia Pacific ESG Working group.He is an active participant in the industry’s Fintech events and is a public speaker on topics such as Central Bank Digital Currencies, Blockchain, Digital Assets, Financial Markets, Sustainability and Regulatory Reforms. He serves as a mentor to startups and co-authored a publication from the World Economic Forum called The Digital Currency Governance Consortium Whitepaper, published in November 2021. He is a also mentor for the UK FCA Sustainability TechSprint, FCA Digital Sandbox,  R3 and LongHash.Prior to joining SCB, Mr. Ho was the Managing Director Principal in the legal department of Bear Stearns (Japan), Ltd (“Bear Stearns”) where he supported the Asia franchise (including Tokyo, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, India and South-east Asia) from January 2003 to August 2008 covering various structured products and derivatives including equity derivatives, credit derivatives, fixed income and commodities. Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Mr. Ho worked as Asia equity counsel for Lehman Brothers in Tokyo with experience dealing in convertibles, options, warrants, delta one products and other types of equity derivatives transactions, equity finance and equity capital markets. He is qualified as an advocate and solicitor in Singapore since 1995 and he received his law degree from the National University of Singapore.

With 85,000 employees and a presence in 59 markets, Standard Chartered Bank's network serves customers in close to 150 markets worldwide. Standard Chartere Bank is listed on the London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges

The presentation title will be announced soon

 

Dr. Kombe Kaponda is the leading researcher on the effects of financial technologies and the feasibility of CBDC in developing economies and the immediate past chairperson for the Central Bank of Zambia (BoZ) Finacial Technologies Working Group. He is a certified Digital Finance Practitioner (CDFP), an active contributor to the global fintech and digital innovations agenda, participating in the IMF-World Bank Technology Community of Practice (CoP), a CBDC technology CoP in the Digital Advisory Unit focusing on R&D and research about CBDC technology for mutual global learning. He is also a founding trustee of the Association for Digital Finance Practitioners (ADFP) in Zambia and the Global Alliance of Digital Finance Associations. He is currently participating in the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Architecture Interoperability Committee, Taxonomy & CBDC, and Digital Currency Ecosystem Global Initiative WG. Dr. Kombe Kaponda holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), with a research thesis, focused on the feasibility and possible use cases, interoperability of FMI on CBDC implementation, Master’s Degree in ICT Regulation, Policy and Management (MEng.), certifications from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, Executive Education on Cambridge FinTech & Regulatory Innovation Programme, Data Science, machine learning and R programming from HarvardX University, FinTech Professional certification from the University of Hong Kong and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (BSc.). He is a thought leader, published author and a public speaker on financial technologies developments in SSA and has facilitated several Digital Financial Services (DFS), Artificial intelligence (AI) in Finance, Cybersecurity training workshops and seminars around the world.

Central Bank of Zambia.

The promise of Artificial Intelligence in Finance: Case for developing Economies

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize the financial industry, especially in developing economies. AI-powered financial services can help to improve financial inclusion, reduce costs, and increase efficiency. AI can also help to reduce the costs of financial services through AI-powered chatbots can automate customer service tasks, and AI-powered fraud detection systems can help to reduce fraud losses. Developing economies like Zambia is well-positioned to benefit from the promise of AI in finance because of the increasing populations of underserved individuals and businesses, and they are also often early adopters of new technologies

I am a regulatory innovations specialist and consultant with five years’ experience as Senior Project Manager at the EBRD. My expertise spans fintech strategy, digital technologies, and the development of regulatory platforms for public authorities, including central banks. I have overseen capacity building, business development, and multi-stakeholder engagement across various regions. My focus is on designing and implementing innovative regulatory and legal frameworks, such as regulatory sandboxes, and fostering a culture of innovation within traditional financial institutions. Currently, as an external advisor  I am leading the development of AI competencies at the National Bank of Ukraine, where I am helping to embed an AI-driven culture. Alongside this, I serve as a tutor at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, supporting regulators in their journey to understand emerging technologies. As a delegate selected for UN Women UK (CSW68) 2024, I am also advocating for a more diverse and equitable AI landscape. I hold an MSc in Digital Communications from London Metropolitan University, a certificate in Fintech from Cambridge Judge Business School, certificates in Leadership and AI from Oxford Saïd Business School, a certificate in Generative AI for Decision Makers from AWS, certificate on EU AI Act expertise from AI & Partners and certificates in Global Internet Governance and Data Privacy from Carnegie Mellon University.

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at Cambridge Judge Business School was established in January 2015 to conduct cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, rigorous and independent research on the development of alternative financing instruments, channels and systems, as well as related socio-economic, regulatory and policy implications.  

Our team of researchers, experts, technologists and educators share the CCAF’s mission to accelerate the creation and transfer of knowledge that pushes the boundaries of research, catalyses the sustainable development of financial innovation and informs evidence-based regulation.  

Presentation title will be published soon