FinTech and Space – propelling Scotland forward
We all know that two heads are better than one so imagine the power of two of Scotland’s strongest and most innovative industries coming together to develop tools and capabilities to tackle large scale challenges.
“FinTech meets Space” event in January was the first in a series of joint activities between FinTech Scotland and Space Scotland to spark collaboration between the two clusters and harness the power of cross sector working.
The event brought together thought leaders, industry experts, academics, government agencies, innovators and corporates to start the process of understanding how two very different industries can utilise the capabilities of each other to face off to solve real time challenges.
“You don’t know what you don’t know, so be open to possibilities” was the provocation that started the day off, and it certainly worked. Conversations ranged from the strength of Scotland as a centre of excellence in both fields, to leading edge use of Spatial data to tackle unexpected issues in the health and social care sectors, to more focussed discussions on some live use cases within Financial Services.
These examples spanned a wide range of activities, including understanding insurance risks, building confidence in investments, supporting emerging regulatory requirements and a number of areas of ESG development.
Presentations from Global Surface Intelligence, D-CAT, AstroSat and Earthblox brought some of the possibilities to life, with a joint presentation from the FinTech and Space leads at the University of Strathclyde reinforced the potential for interconnection and collaboration.
The objective of this event was to introduce and to spark conversations between the sectors ahead of a broader Accelerator programme funded by the UK Space Agency.
The programme which will run over the course of a number of months will take the live problem statements and use cases which sparked such enthusiasm in the room and create the opportunity for us to all come together and start working on some tangible prototypes and solutions
We will build on the connections made in the room to form some long lasting relationships and potentially partnerships across our sectors. The potential is vast and the opportunity for Scotland to build on our strengths in both domains to become a world leader in this area is hugely exciting…… watch this space!
