By Cole Strzelecki
A new resource is on its way for our campus community’s use. This resource will be called the Financial Technology Center. It will broaden our University’s computing capacity and bring students more opportunities to gain hands-on experience with the current world of finance.
“The Financial Technology Center really is an extension of the Cohen Trading Room,” explained the Dean of the College of Business, Sharianne Walker. “As a college of Business, it is very important to focus on ensuring our students are prepared for not only what’s happening in the workplace now, but also the future of work,” Walker continued. She believes that the Financial Technology Center will help make this happen.
The Financial Technology Center will grant the students of Western New England University more significant opportunities to learn about the business and financial world. “This can come through the form of financial research, analytics, looking at how stocks are performing and what that means, and much more,” Walker stated.
Students will also be able to work closely with other students with this cutting-edge financial technology. Additionally, the center will open more opportunities for students in the College of Business to work with actual businesses, per the mission of the College of Business.
The Financial Technology Center has spent almost a year in planning and preparing for its implementation into Western New England University. It has moved through various phases of development from its conception and received support for its construction and seeing it come to fruition. “We had to look at a host of things when planning it all out,” Walker mentioned, “there are a lot of moving pieces to this, but the good news is that so many things have come together with a lot of support from all of the faculty.”
Another beneficial aspect of the Financial Technology Center’s successful creation is the grant they received. Though we can not reveal any further information about the granter, Walker explained that they were always heading toward getting a grant for the center’s construction. “We have some funders in place, have several people already committed and on board with the project, and we will continue to seek additional support” Walker informed.
On a separate note, the technology available in the Financial Technology Center seems very high tech according to the Chief Information Officer for Information Technology, Scott Coopee. “The A100 GPU used in the HPC cluster has a peak performance of over 19 teraflops (trillion floating-point operations per second),” Coopee explained, “This is approximately ten times as powerful as the fastest processor used in our high-end workstations on campus.” Simply put, with the 16 A100 GPUs in the HPC cluster, the cluster will have the raw power of approximately 160 high-end workstation computers.
With the already outstanding resources available at the Financial Technology Center, what more could they improve upon and add in the future? Well, it seems that Walker and Coopee have already considered that.
“The College of Business moving forward will continue to emphasize the future of work and help develop the skillsets and mindsets that people need to succeed in business,” Walker explained. She plans on using the Financial Technology Center to pursue this idea.
With the Financial Technology Center, the College of Business will be able to launch new programs to help students succeed. “We are creating a bridge for students between academia and business,” Walker stated, “And we expect people to walk both ways across the bridge: students to business and business people back into our academic environment.” This connection will lead to the creation of more internships and job opportunities for all.
The Financial Technology Center seems to be a beneficial addition to the Western New England University campus community. With the support it’s getting and the promising future it has lined up for itself, one can only wait in anticipation for it to be completed and open for use.
