FinTech Society: Research Vice President

Hi! I'm Karim, a first year computer science student. I am nominating myself for the research vice-president because I am really passionate about helping the society in this area. I have always been interested in fintech, and I believe this industry can benefit a lot from new ideas students can provide. I hope to create a fun, collaborative environment where everyone is encouraged to contribute and display their own ideas. I'd love to explore new ways of approaching research together and help the society produce insightful and engaging work. I'd also love to organise research labs and projects that members can work on together throughout the year. 

I’m standing for Research Vice President because I want to build a research culture in the society that is high-quality, outcome-oriented, and informed by data-driven financial analysis.

My motivation comes from practice, rather than theory alone. As a current media executive in FinTech Society, I wrote post-event articles for each society event on the society website. That experience made it very clear to me that members benefit most when insights are distilled into a consistent format: what matters, why it matters, and what to read or try next. Without that structure, good content fades quickly after events.

I am also personally drawn to areas where finance meets computation. I have leveraged Python in a derivatives-focused financial engineering project, and I’ve worked on an AI/LLM interaction project. I enjoy translating technical work into financial insights such as how models behave under uncertainty, what assumptions break in stressed markets, and how to communicate results responsibly. That combination of consistent research output and technical grounding is why I’m applying for this role.

If elected, I will keep the research arm practical and member-facing:

• Regular research outputs tied to current FinTech trends such as GenAI adoption, tokenised assets, and next-gen payments infrastructure.
• Small themed groups on active FinTech areas with clear deliverables (short reports + reproducible GitHub).
• Lightweight workshops so members at different levels can contribute and learn.