The inaugural Fintech Focus NI event held on 30th January by The Fintech Corridor brought together key players in Fintech from all over the island of Ireland, including representatives from the DCU DigiAdvance and Micro-Credentials project teams. This event gave the DCU DigiAdvance project team an excellent opportunity to disseminate the work of the DigiAdvance Project in tandem with our industry project partner The FinTech Corridor. The event also represented a fantastic opportunity to share the DigiAdvance skills mapping tool survey for employees and connect with employers to pilot the DigiAdvance employers survey. Most of this work was completed whilst hosting the DigiAdvance stand where the team seized the opportunity to engage with industry representatives attending the conference.
Dr. Mairéad Nic Giolla Mhichíl was a guest panellist at the event and spoke about Growing Irish & Northern Irish Fintech through European Collaboration highlighting the synergies of the DigiAdvance Project with this type of work. CEO Hilary Moran and Chair Simon Bailie emphasised the Fintech Corridor’s efforts in fostering collaboration among fintechs, academia, and development agencies to drive industry growth. The Fintech Corridor, established in 2020 along the Dublin to Belfast route, aims to promote the region as a fintech hub and is an industry partner for the DigiAdvance project.
Panel discussions centred on projects like DigiAdvance and FINE, addressing digital skills gaps and promoting global Fintech collaboration. Panels delved into recruitment challenges and compliance communication, with keynote speeches from industry leaders. Invest NI highlighted Northern Ireland’s finance sector growth and foreign investments since the Good Friday Agreement. The event showcased success stories like First Derivative and DailyPay, indicating a growing fintech momentum. Despite being less established than other clusters, attendees expressed optimism about the region’s potential to emerge as a prominent fintech destination through ambitious storytelling and collaboration.
If you would like to learn more about DigiAdvance and advancing key digital skill capabilities in the SME sector please visit DigiAdvance.eu. If you are a European SME founder, manager or employee and would like to share what digital skills gaps you and your colleagues are seeking to upskill in with please take the anonymous Skills Needs Analysis Survey. This survey takes 5-10 minutes and will allow you to contribute to shaping our new 40+ low-cost, flexible, demand-driven & certified digital tech courses as part of the DigiAdvance project.
