Tech company encourages Newry students to apply for new scholarship programme
CompareNI.com, Northern Ireland’s leading financial comparison platform, is encouraging students in Newry to apply for its new fintech scholarship – provided they aren’t studying ‘fin’ or ‘tech’.
The tech firm’s contrarian approach to addressing the sector’s looming talent shortage has been hailed by politicians, academics and business leaders.
Lady Borwick, past member of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, former Deputy Mayor of London and staunch advocate of the urgent need to address the UK’s digital skills shortage, said, “It is vital that we do all we can to create jobs and opportunities for the next generation, investing in our young people in order to enable them to drive innovation forward.
“Whether it’s in banking, financial services, technology, media or the arts, finance and technology training is vital. That’s why this scholarship matters – because it gives young people the opportunity to explore these vital skills, which can in turn help them to take advantage of all the possibilities and career options that arise for them in the future.”
Peter Oakes, former Director of the Central Bank of Ireland and the Founder of Fintech Ireland, the industry body for the fintech sector on the island of Ireland, said, “Northern Ireland is an exponentially growing centre of fintech innovation but many young professionals assume the province’s fintech companies are only interested in finance and computer science graduates.
“That’s why the structure of this fintech scholarship, the fact that it is specifically designed to appeal to students from a diverse range of other disciplines, is particularly welcome.
“Some of the most innovative and fast-growing fintech businesses across the UK and Ireland have been created by entrepreneurs from non-traditional backgrounds, and a greater diversity of experience (and diversity of thought) is sure to help strengthen the sector even more,” he added.
Leading academics also recognised the new scholarship programme as an important way to foster greater diversity within the UK’s fast-growing fintech sector.
Chris Ivory, Professor of Technology and Organisation at Lord Ashcroft International Business School, said, “This scholarship underlines the increasing realisation that the future competitive advantage of digital technology lies with people not technology.
“Those industries, sectors and nations that prosper are those that fully recognise that the real value-added of technology lies in how it is integrated with new work, skills, roles and organisational forms.”
The deadline to apply for CompareNI.com’s Fintech Scholarship is Thursday 28 March 2019.
Full details of how to apply are available here: https://www.compareni.com/fintech-scholarship.htm
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Posted by Newry Times News
on Nov 23 2018. Filed under Community, Jobs & Careers.
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