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Welcome to Zenith

Get Involved!

All SIG related communications are conducted through the [email protected] mailing list. Email [email protected] with questions or suggestions for collaboration use cases. Join the mailing list and stay up to date by sending a note to [email protected] .

Watch our intro video for a general overview.

The FINOS Emerging Technologies Special Interest Group

Welcome to the GitHub repository of the Zenith SIG. The purpose of this special interest group is to explore and promote the adoption of new and innovative technologies in the financial services industry. The goals of the SIG are to:

1. Create emerging technology primers

  • Created by subject matter experts within the Brain Trust 1
  • Provides an introduction to the subject & relevant reading to seed knowledge
  • We leave them open for comments for further discussion & follow-ups
  • They detail various technology readiness levels of the underlying technologies & their uses
  • We also develop an Emerging Technology Analysis Canvas (ETAC) to aid in business adoption
  • The primers highlight existing efforts across the industry & academia to deliver solutions and remove duplications of effort
  • Mature primers can be used to develop training materials to support future users/innovators/adopters to understand and work with emerging technologies as they mature
  • Current blockers are called out to aid exploration in our POC program

2. Curate a Brain Trust

The Brain Trust 1 is a collection of relevant subject matter experts who can advise and guide on each Emerging Technology. We do this by assessing potential candidates across three key disciplines:

Core Discipline Description
Theoretical Are the candidates focused on the understanding or research of the topic
Technical Are the candidates building concepts or solutions within the topic
Commercial Are the candidates currently bringing solutions to the marketplace or implementing solutions at enterprise level

When assessing a candidate for the Brain Trust 1, we require them to demonstrate capabilities in a majority of the following criteria:

Core Capability Comment
Education & Training Has the candidate previously received training in the subject or a relevant adjacent subject
Body of Work Has the candidate published (either in print, digitally or in repositories) work that is relevant to the subject
Skills & Awards Has the candidate received any form of recognition from an entity relevant to the sector
Professionalism & Ethics Does the candidate demonstrate positive attitudes including inclusivity and giving back to the subject/relevant communities
Continual Development Does the candidate undertake efforts to keep up-to-date with the cutting edge of their discipline

Watch our video about Brain Trusts for more details.

3. Support innovators to create Proofs-of-Concept (POCs)

Our POC Exploration program enables innovators to be able to pursue conceptual designs to overcome blockers that stand in the way of progressing the technology readiness of emerging technology. We impose control gates on the process to control the flow of funding and duration of exploration so that we can fail fast and win quickly.

The POC Process Control Gates:

1. Opportunity Outline

As part of primer creation, outline opportunities where the emerging technology can disrupt FinTech, detailing relevant solutions or applications

  • Create primer
  • Outline where disruption is possible or worth exploring

2. Call for Ideas

Issue a call-to-arms for the community to submit ideas or projects to explore within the working group

  • From opportunities outlined, define the problem statement
  • Create a call-to-arms to source proposed solutions
  • Enable re-use of shelved projects alongside fresh ideas

3. SME Vetting

The Zenith Brain Trust 1 review ideas and give a justification for exploration by the program

  • Sanity check by the Brain Trust to confirm is the ideas are possible, feasible, worthwhile, legal and/or already explored

4. Value Proposition

A value proposition is created by participants of the SIG with the Maintainer Team2 to establish the predicted impact of exploration

  • A value proposition details the potential return on investment of time/expenditure into the POC project
  • Dependent on available budget & availability of Support Services, priority is given to projects with higher perceived value vs required investment
  • Value propositions are confidential to the FINOS Zenith Funding Team 3 to inform their decisions

5. Funding Governance

Pool of representatives from the FINOS Zenith Funding Team 3 vote to approve access to funds or resources to facilitate exploration

  • Funding would have a per project cap on both budget and duration (Details to be confirmed)
  • Co-investment of resources can be offered in lieu of funding by Service Providers 4
  • Projects without asks can skip this step

6. Commencement & Recording

Participants 5 must provide regular public updates to access drawdown of phased funding. If a project becomes unviable, project funding is reclaimed

  • Participants 5 must provide regular public updates to access funding or resources
  • If a project becomes unviable, a record is kept and funding/resources are reclaimed
  • Shelved projects are stored for possible future exploration

7. Showcase

Participants 5 create a video presentation of project to share intelligence with future users, talking through issues and learning points to streamline future adoption

  • Upon project completion, demos and project walkthroughs are recorded to share intelligence with future users
  • These should cover 1. pain points 2. ideas on how to improve the concept in future 3. solutions for common issues

8. Source Release

Participants 5 share their repository to FINOS master repo that perpetuates open source collaboration. Individual Participants 5 are accredited for their efforts

  • Participants 5 share their repositories publicly on the FINOS master
  • Individual Participants 5 are accredited for their efforts
  • Perpetuation of support for open source collaboration is the goal

4. Develop & Curate Open Source Libraries

We seek to create a leading standards for quick starting or sandboxing within each emerging technology. If possible, we also attempt to harmonise with the existing FINOS Landscape

License

Copyright © 2023 Fintech Open Source Foundation

Distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

Footnotes

  1. Brain Trust - Subject matter experts recognised by the SIG who demonstrate qualification and experience ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Maintainer Team - The Zenith SIG team who run and co-ordinate the program ↩

  3. FINOS Zenith Funding Team - FINOS member representatives that receive guidance and choose which projects to prioritise and/or fund ↩ ↩2

  4. Service Providers - FINOS members or FINOS-affiliated companies that provide Technology or Service support to aid in the development of POCs. Can offer subsidised access to services, platforms or talent ↩

  5. Participants - Individuals or teams who take part within the POC program and pitch their ideas for funding, working to develop solutions or repositories that create the standards for source release ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7