On Saturday 5 December 2020, ESG Radar, also known as Governance.com Team, and Ticked, also known as Lingua Custodia Team, won the final pitching competition after a week-long immersion in the inaugural Fintech Entrepreneurship Programme, delivered by the Luxembourg Digital Finance Academy.
ESG Radar developed a solution to help asset managers who are currently facing conflicting challenges in relation to sustainable investing. Ticked developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered solution to enhance better, faster and cost-efficient detection of greenwashing in funds documentation.
Alongside two other teams, ESG Radar and Ticked pitched in front of a jury composed of the following: Julie Becker, Deputy CEO of Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE); Denise Voss, Chairwoman of LuxFLAG; Ananda Kautz, Head of Innovation, Digital Banking and Payments at ABBL; Tram Anh Nguyen, Co-Founder of CFTE; Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the LHoFT. The jury judged the pitches on four criteria: boldness; viability; look and feel of the delivery; Fintech entrepreneurship skills.
The Fintech Entrepreneurship Programme is the first initiative of Luxembourg's Digital Finance Academy, built by the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) and the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) after an agreement signed during the Singapore Fintech Festival in November 2019. The Academy is designed to help financial institutions upskill their employees in Fintech, and help finance professionals, masters or PhD students and policymakers deepen their understanding of the changing landscape of the industry.
From Friday 27 November to Saturday 5 December 2020, four teams led by four prominent Luxembourg Fintech companies (LuxHub, Tokeny, Governance and Lingua Custodia) worked tirelessly on case-studies dedicated to Open Banking, Blockchain, RegTech and AI. The use-cases gave each team a concrete problem to explore, taking ownership by developing a realistic strategy within the firm's framework of available resources, in light of sustainability goals.
The four teams worked with leading Fintech firms in Luxembourg, learned how to apply design thinking and agile methodology, received mentoring from successful founders and innovation executives and enhanced their professional networks.
On the first day, each team received eight hours of classes delivered by industry experts, covering topics such as entrepreneurship, legal, marketing and cash management. The following day, each team worked with thirteen prominent mentors giving them guidance and feedback. Led by Antony Martini and Piotr Kurzepa from CFTE, the teams continued work on their proposals throughout the week, up until the "Grande finale".
The Fintech Entrepreneurship Programme culminated with a final pitch session on Saturday, gathering Luxembourg's Fintech and Finance community digitally. The four teams delivered their final pitches, leveraging the input they had received from the programme partners, experts and mentors over the course of the programme.
ESG Radar and Ticked received an official graduation certificate from CFTE, as the other participants, in addition to an access to the CFTE Entrepreneurship program and a free membership at the LHoFT to continue working on the project, and an opportunity to turn it into a reality.
Tram Anh Nguyen, Co-Founder of CFTE, stated: "We are thrilled to have partnered with LHoFT to develop and deliver the very first entrepreneurship programme and I am very pleased we have made an impact in Luxembourg. This programme was developed for people from all backgrounds to acquire some excellent knowledge in Fintech and in today's world, one skill that one should have is the mindset of an entrepreneur. I am amazed by the quality of strategies developed by each team in just a week".
Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the LHoFT Foundation, commented: "The Fintech Entrepreneurship Programme aims to upskill financial services professionals to be able to better embrace and take advantage of the accelerated shift to digital. We are very grateful to all the mentors, tutors and supporters of this program alongside the participants who showed enthusiasm and real engagement in their attendance. Congratulations to all the teamsand in particular ESG Radar and Tickedfor their outstanding projects".
Antony Martini, Fintech Entrepreneurship Programme Lead, added: " Four teams competed to develop the best business strategy within the boundaries of their available limited resources, exceeding the judges and Innovation Leaders' expectations in the end. The Fintech entrepreneurship program is an intense programme reflecting the realities of entrepreneurship combining both lectures by renown instructors, the exposure to in-field mentors and the solving of real-live case studies".
