A recap of our energizing First Members Meeting

A few A/V hiccups notwithstanding, the meeting went extremely well, with informative presentations and open collaboration throughout the day. There were more than fifty people and 15 organizations represented in attendance, along with over a dozen speakers.  Many of you expressed interest in the material presented during the event, so check out our speakers presentations on Slideshare.

We welcome all members of the Community to dive into the content, and to provide feedback and ideas as we increase both in numbers and in reach.  Once again thank you to all those who participated, the speakers and to members providing feedback and helping us build this Open revolution in Financial Services. 

The purpose of the first meeting was to come together as a group, introduce ourselves, and review the Symphony Software Foundation’s current state and roadmap.  It was also used as a forum to elect members of the Foundation’s ESCo, which we’ll highlight shortly.  Key updates were provided on the status of the organization & governance, product & technology, and community & ecosystem.

For more detailed information, please feel free to review my presentation below, which also outlines the goals and initiatives for Q3 and Q4 of 2016: these include, among other things, completing existing and new inflight contributions, broadening the technology for full open-source readiness, and expanding Membership.

Speaking of Membership, both,  OpenFin and BondLab (Foundation prospective Members) were particularly well-received as prospects at the meeting, which bodes quite well for their candidacy. More to come on that front soon…

Congratulations to Our Newest ESCo Leads

As mentioned, at the meeting Members voted on new ESCo Members leads. First off, I want to thank the 5 Candidates who stepped up, it was a really competitive election. 

We look forward to their guidance and contributions in the upcoming months and the two years to follow.  For more information about the ESCo, visit our ESCo space.On behalf of the Foundation Membership and Community, please join us in congratulating the newest leads of the Foundation ESCo,  James Turck of Credit Suisse, pictured on the left, and Frank Tarsillo of Markit, on the right. I am personally  very pleased to have a represetnation from a Founding Member and one from a Community Member, in the spirit of an optimal representation of our Community.

For a bright Future on the Symphony Platform 

If you find the time to review the agenda or any of the presentations, you will quickly learn that a lot was covered at the meeting, from code contributions toopen source product lifecycle management.

What was most pervasive throughout the presentations and the many discussions, however, was a communal sense of importance and excitement in regards to bringing open source within financial services.

Open source software is no longer a theoretical “nice-to-have,” but an essential investment that yields a return on investment in a myriad of ways, whether through sweat equity, time and cost savings, collaborative contributions, new product developments, or sheer innovation.

As vanguards within this industry we recognize that change management will be challenging, but we believe that it will not be an uphill battle but merely a matter of time and with your help, I can safely say that that time is now!

We have the opportunity to bring Open Source in Financial Services from the front door, and if you sometimes struggle to see how we are going to do it, well, I think the Mahatma Gandhi had a good way to look at this. Check the video below and I’ll see you at the next Foundation event!