Embracing Open Source in Finance: My First 60 Days at FINOS

My name is Karl Moll, and I'm thrilled to be the new Technical Project Advocate at FINOS. For those who haven't met me yet, I've been involved in the fintech and open source ecosystems in developer solutions roles since 2017. You can find more about me on the FINOS Team page here. 

In my new role, I'm excited to take on some of James McLeod's previous responsibilities in community building, focusing on technical advocacy. This means creating project support materials (think one-pagers, guides, etc.), organizing community events (from meetups to hackathons), and much more!

I'm incredibly passionate about cross-industry collaboration within financial services and the transformative power of open source. To hear more about my background and vision, check out my recent podcast with Grizz.

Lessons Learned

While my background aligns well with the FINOS mission, my biggest takeaway so far has been learning "The Linux Foundation Way." 

Much of my previous work in cross-industry collaboration within financial services was influenced by a vendor-specific bias. Living and breathing vendor and industry neutrality is incredibly beneficial in creating sustainable "common solutions for common problems" within the industry.

Additionally, open source projects I've encountered recently sometimes used restrictive software licenses. Working at FINOS has reinforced the significance of permissive licenses to maximize use, collaboration, and contribution within financial services.

Current & Upcoming Tasks

Here's a look at some initiatives I've recently completed and exciting things on the horizon:

Completed Initiatives:

• Hosted a Morphir contributor brainstorming session focused on roadmap strategy, project messaging, and integration opportunities. 
• Facilitated a successful NYC regional FINOS social meetup to foster networking and collaboration.

Current & Upcoming:

• Organizing a recurring NYC-area meetup (ideally monthly so stay tuned!).
• Planning project/integration brainstorming sessions, tech sprints, and hackathons focusing on CDM, TraderX, and Morphir throughout the first half of the year.
• Collaborating with NYC-based technical meetups to co-host events, broadening interest in FINOS projects among technology experts.
  
  

• Worked extensively with a Large Language Model (LLM) to develop a robust understanding of the Morphir project.
• Collaborating with Morphir maintainers to review a proposed one-pager. See the GitHub issue here. 
• Generating various documents to support Morphir (use cases, integrations, summaries, guides, etc.).
• Creating a TraderX one-pager, with a public discussion on GitHub planned for later this week.

Stay Connected:

• Sign up to receive FINOS updates and hear about upcoming events 
• Follow the FINOS Community Calendar for the latest project and SIG meetings.

The Value of Open Source Collaboration

My excitement for the power of open source within the financial services industry has only grown during my time at FINOS. Particularly, the "Linux Foundation model" provides a unique ability to create collaborative solutions across the industry. Here are some initiatives I'm incredibly excited about:

• Proposed "AI Readiness" Special Interest Group: An industry group tackling challenges like AI readiness, regulatory concerns, and protecting intellectual property while leveraging AI, aligns perfectly with my interests in this sector since 2014. It demonstrates the immense power of open-source collaboration for addressing complex topics on a broad scale.
• Upcoming Open Source in Finance Forum: Engaging, community-focused opportunities like these are not only enjoyable but showcase the tangible results of open collaboration. I look forward to helping projects prepare, seeing presentations, and fostering new integrations at the event.
• TraderX: I've witnessed firsthand the challenges of demonstrating integration value and building proof-of-concepts. TraderX solves these with a collaborative, lightweight approach, ideal for the financial services world – a true testament to the power of the open-source model.
• Morphir: Collaboration on building flexible business logic engines that streamline compliance (imagine Morphir and OpenRegTech): demonstrates how open-source can solve significant pain points for a highly regulated industry. For example, check out how the Liquidity Coverage Ratio can be implemented in Morphir.

Conclusion

My first two months at FINOS have been incredibly rewarding. Collaboration and a commitment to open standards are shaping the future of financial services, and I'm energized to play a part in shaping it. Please feel free to reach out to me at karl@finos.org or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm excited to meet more of you within the FINOS community! 

- Karl

Interested in this FINOS open source project, or any of our other projects? Click the link below to see how to get involved in the FINOS Community.