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We address the scarcity of skills in the fintech industry by training the next generation of students and innovators. Through blockchain workshops, online courses, and opportunities for collaboration, we aim to nurture a mindset shift amongst students, encouraging them to become creators of job opportunities rather than job seekers. This educational element also creates a talent pool that financial services companies can tap into, accessing the expertise and fresh perspectives of our students, faculty members, researchers, and other stakeholders.
The Master of Philosophy specialising in Financial Technology is an interdisciplinary degree convened by the School of Economics in close collaboration with the UCT Department of Statistics. This is the only dedicated Fintech Master’s program in Africa. The program started in 2018 by Prof. Co-Pierre Georg and is currently convened by Dr. Allan Davids. It continues to be one of the most selective programs UCT offers with admissions rates usually ranging between 5-10%.
The core objectives of the degree is to teach students hard (coding) skills in order to empower them to start their own company or make a meaningful impact in the financial services industry. Graduates from the program have gone on to start their own companies (e.g. FoodPrint, Mandla Money, Wildcards, Axone), join fintech startups (e.g. UMA, LUNO), and entering industries such as financial services (e.g. Standard Bank, RMB, Investec) or management consulting (e.g. Bain & Co, BCG, Eighty20).
For more information, please see the brochure below for an overview of the curriculum contents, all programme benefits and bursary offerings. For detailed information on the curriculum, please see here.
Applications for the class of 2025 close on the 31st of October 2024. Apply now via this link.
We give an overview of programme curriculum and it's special features including the annual international study tour and practitioner seminars. We briefly cover bursary opportunities, our historical funding distribution and support for students interested in innovation.
Download the brochure hereOO
The week-long event welcomed students from across the entire UCT community, from first-year undergraduates to postdoctoral researchers. The 4-day Bootcamp, held in June 2024, featured sessions led by Allan Davids (Senior Lecturer at UCT), Sabine Schaller (Lead Engineer at Interledger), and Takunda Chirema (Technical Specialist at FinHub). The program covered topics such as payments, full-stack development, and the Interledger Protocol, offering both practical and theory-based content.
The event concluded with a hackathon on the 5th and 6th days, where about 40 participants formed 9 student teams to bootstrap a proof of concept and pitch their startup idea to a panel of industry-based judges. Teams competed for a prize pool of R65,000 sponsored by the Interledger Foundation
Led by Gary Lu, these Algorand Developer Workshops were held in April, 2023 for six sessions over two weeks in both online and in-person formats. These were entry-level, highly-practical sessions where the aim is to bootstrap potential hackathon participants and beginners looking to get coding on the Algorand blockchain.
Links to the slides used in each session are included each video. See this GitHub repository for instructions on how to access the practical components of the workshops. Participants were expected to code along to complete the smart contracts with the workshop lead in GitLab.
The Workshops were followed by a two-month long hackathon where all students affiliated with the University of Cape Town were invited to participate. 15 teams participated and 5 teams were shortlisted to pitch at the closing ceremony. The top three teams combined received a total of R235,000 in prize money comprising of bursaries and cash sponsored by the Algorand Foundation.
