Shanghai Financial Technology Industry-University-Research-Tongji Forum was held to explore the blockchain industry-university-research cooperation model

In order to promote the development of Shanghai's financial technology and the construction of Shanghai's science and technology innovation center, and to build a leading demonstration city for financial technology in the "Internet +" era, the "Shanghai Financial Technology Industry-University-Research-Tongji Forum" was held at Tongji University on October 15. This forum was initiated by universities and focused on discussing the development trends, opportunities and challenges of financial technology industries and technologies such as blockchain. It has received strong support from many units, including the Shanghai Economic and Information Technology Commission, the Application Innovation Working Committee of the Internet Society of China, and the China Information Industry Network of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

As the organizer, Jiang Bo, vice president of Tongji University, pointed out: "At present, financial technology is developing in full swing. In addition to developing financial technology represented by blockchain, we must also highly cross-integrate scientific and technological information technology, management science, big data analysis, and the intersection of finance and informatization, and should strengthen new distributed value networks such as sociology, ethics, and philosophy." Jiang Guoqing, chief engineer of the Central Bank Digital Currency Research Institute, introduced the necessity of China's research and development of legal digital currency. He mentioned that the central bank spends 35 billion yuan a year on RMB escort, and the printing and recycling cost of a 100-yuan RMB note is 2 yuan. Gu Weihua, deputy director of the Software and Informatization Department of the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission, emphasized that we should rationally view the financial technology of blockchain, big data, and cloud computing, which has not yet achieved widespread results. It is impossible to replace banks as the main financial industry at present, but it only provides support for the cost reduction of this industry.

This forum aims to promote joint discussions and cooperation among production, academia and research in the blockchain industry. During the forum, representatives from academics, outstanding startups and industry observers in the blockchain industry shared their views.

Dr. Chen Longqiang, Research Director of JD Finance Strategic Research Department, shared "Evolution of Fintech and Blockchain". He believes that
The evolution of financial technology should be: financial electronicization - financial informatization - Internetization - digitalization (after 2015), and the evolution of blockchain currently seems to be divided into three stages:

1. Bitcoin, Colored Coins, Factom, 2009-2014
2. Distributed ledgers, digital assets, and smart contracts from 2015 to 2020
3.2020- Programmable finance, legal digital currency

A representative from IBM China Lab shared IBM’s understanding of blockchain, which is a distributed ledger technology:

"IBM is more from a business perspective. Business networks benefit from interconnection. In all business activities, the ledger is the key to business activities, transactions are the professionalization of assets in the ledger, and contracts are the key to transactions."

He believes that blockchain lays the foundation for enterprises in the ecosystem.

"Traditional projects move from within the enterprise to the ecosystem. Blockchain, as the foundation, brings the internal ecosystem management of the enterprise to the ecosystem management between enterprises. The key to the future development of blockchain is to apply blockchain as the basic technology from within the enterprise to the ecosystem and business network. The current situation is that technology has gone ahead of business. What is more important in the future is how business personnel can discover new business models and how to make full use of technology. This is a technology-driven evolution of the business model."

Dr. He Haiwu from the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences introduced distributed cloud computing based on blockchain technology. Cloud computing provides scalable and inexpensive distributed computing capabilities through the network, and the new generation of green intelligent cloud computing platform is equal to blockchain + distributed + cloud computing.

Shen Taolei, founder of Leiying Quantitative Technology, believes that the interesting thing about blockchain is that it is a collective innovation. Blockchain has bred computer technology and economic models. Leiying is starting a business in the direction of asset digitization and blockchain data. Leiying is exploring the application of blockchain in digital financial scenarios. Specific technical practices include risk control systems, the application of blockchain medical big data, and supply chain finance and composite blockchain.

Tongji University, Qianbao Financial Services, Liandong Advantage, Taiyi Cloud Technology, Huobi Blockchain, Changliang Technology and other companies also shared their experiences and results in blockchain research and development and application from their respective perspectives.

Two unveiling ceremonies were held on the day of the event. The first was the unveiling ceremony of the Tongji University-Wallet Financial Services Joint Laboratory, which was established in July 2016. Jiang Bo, Vice President of Tongji University, Zhao Guodong, Chairman of Wallet Financial Services, Wu Jun, Deputy Secretary-General of Shanghai Financial Information Industry Association, Peng Chao, Secretary-General of the Application Innovation Working Committee of the Internet Society of China, Professor Xu Weisheng, Director of the Big Data and Network Security Research Center of Tongji University, and Chen Qijun, Dean of the School of Telecommunications of Tongji University, took the stage to unveil the laboratory; the second was the unveiling ceremony of the Shanghai Fengtai Salon, where representatives of 18 initiators including Tongji University, Shanghai Big Data Innovation Base, Wallet Financial Services, Ouyeel Financial, Guojin Securities, IBM China Laboratory, and Shanghai Financial Valley unveiled the salon. The two unveiling ceremonies marked a new journey for Shanghai in the field of collaborative innovation and cross-border cooperation in financial technology, and promoted the intersection and in-depth development of Shanghai's financial technology ecosystem.

During the forum's lunch break, heads of 15 industry-leading companies, listed companies and leading fintech companies, including Ant Financial, JD Finance, Wanda Finance, Baosteel Ouye Financial, Guotai Junan Securities and IBM China, together with relevant leaders and professors from Tongji University's Big Data and Cybersecurity Research Center and School of Electronic and Information Engineering, discussed how to achieve win-win development through effective industry-university-research cooperation and accelerate the development of China's fintech industry.