Design Talk (dot IE)

Welcome to the Economics and Finance class.Our hosts are Daksh Wadhwa and Peter Barrett. Today, we are very pleased to welcome Denis McCarthy, Head of Financial Risk Model Development at AIB.Thank you for coming in to speak to us today. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your journey into financial risk modelling?·       What does a day in the week look like on your team? [for a finance/economist, quant analyst, programmer]·       How can a large organisation manage end-user tools like Excel? [policy, practices, systems management…]·       Much of the focus is on the technical characteristics and the actions of individuals but not so much on organisational cultural. How can we address the organisational culture angle? [for example, grow and protect a culture of dissent? What might that look like?]·       What about review processes and how to avoid undue influence from one or other actors? [maybe relate to audit trails, version control]·       Are our models becoming too complex? [to either understand fully or to apply in a timely manner? What kinds of new systemic risk do you think about?]·       Is sentiment analysis applied much to risk measurement? [how to do it? gotchas and the dark art of automated textual analysis for gauging sentiment from company filings, conference call transcripts and other bulk sources]Questions from the audience?Before we finish, is there anything further you'd like to add?Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us today. Further reading: Articles, links etc.LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/denis-mccarthy-69970b2b/  AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Voltaic FluctuationsArtist: Ben PruntySource:  https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Non-transferable license. Permission granted by Ben Prunty Cover Art Title: Complex collageArtist: Allen HigginsSource: vignette_version.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part, you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.

Hosted by Christina Philips and Anabela Da Silva Filipe Soares.Welcome to today’s seminar by David Sammon from UCC, Cork University Business School.In this session David Sammon from University College Cork talks about his approach to unlocking the value of the 2x2 Matrix in the classroom. David is co-Founder of the Data Value Innovation Group, whose mission is helping organisations to deliver value from their data through data value mapping. The Data Value Map (http://datavaluemap.com) offers resources for visual discursive organisational analysis and facilitation to build shared understanding around data initiatives.Further reading, sources, mentions and acknowledgements.David’s homepage at UCC - https://www.cubsucc.com/faculty-directory/dr-david-sammon/AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Guitar HouseArtist: josh pan (2020)Source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL-LId8ZWBMLicense: License CC BY 3.0Cover Art Title: Complex collaboration for BAEFArtist: Nuno Machado and Allen HigginsSource: vignette_version.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.

Welcome to the CITO Podcast.Séamas Kelly invites Hippolyte Lefebvre to present an overview of his research interests and direction. Hippolyte is a member of CITO and the Management Information Systems group in the UCD College of Business, Dublin, and previously at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.Notes, extra questions, and further reading:Homepage at UCD - https://people.ucd.ie/hippolyte.lefebvreAnd Google scholar page linkAcknowledgementsMusic Title: Justice Little LeagueArtist: Ema GraceSource:  https://bit.ly/2tJ6BndLicense:  CC BY 4.0Artist notes: Ema Grace is an AI vocaloid produced by Ryoma MAEDA (@Ryoma_Maeda). Styled as virtual Singer&Idol 架空のバーチャルアイドル & シンガー、それがEma Grace.Cover Art Title: Inspired by selfie and AIArtist: Allen HigginsSource: CITO-podcast-DataPractices.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.

Hosted by Alex and Conor. Welcome to the UCD 2nd year Economics and Finance class. Today, we are pleased to welcome Donal Rafferty, Director Product Development in Open Finance at Mastercard, Dublin.Thank you for coming in to speak to us today, can you share a little of your own story?·       So, we’d like to start one of the ideas behind this series of talks. Do you think a finance professional’s working life will involve more or less interaction with dedicated development teams, IT or software engineers?·       Can you make a case for the value of knowing a bit about programming (e.g. python) for working in Finance.·       We are extremely interested in what you’ve learnt from experimenting with advanced aspects of LLMs, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, agentic knowledge graphs, and process automation. What do you imagine is going to be the impact on the Finance industry?·       On your website you used the phrase “embedded finance” a couple of times, can you explain the concept?·       About your website, you said it was VIBE coded. What motivated you and what did you learn about the process? With the time left we’d like to open it to questions from the audience…Any recommendations for books, podcasts, blogs??(questions from audience)Before we finish, is there anything further you'd like to add?Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us today. Notes and further reading: Key books, articles, blogs, podcasts, channelshttps://www.donalrafferty.comExplore Kaggle for inspiring examples of data analysis - https://www.kaggle.comLearn Python and Pandas! There are many resources available, for example, DataCamp - https://www.datacamp.comThe Unicorn Project and The Phoenix Project. Two books by Gene Kim about tech projects and working in tech.Andrew Ng’s AI education platform - https://www.deeplearning.ai/ Register for a free account to get access to Andrew’s videos. (in fact Andrew Ng  coined the term “Agentic AI”, to describe a trend in how people were building applications) AcknowledgementsMusic Title: First TakeArtist: Debajyoti Biswas and Michael O'NeillSource:  mis.aup3License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Cover Art Title: Complex collageArtist: Allen HigginsSource: DonalRafferty_Mastercard.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.

Welcome to the CITO Podcast.This episode is a seminar by Quinn DuPont titled “Making New Money: How autonomous communities produce and govern cryptocurrencies.” Paul Dylan-Ennis opens the session with a brief introduction after which Quinn presents an overview of his project, and Donncha Kavanagh makes some observations and invites reactions.Decentralized cryptocurrencies are upending the foundations of economic power, challenging centuries of state and bank control over money. This research critically examines the rise of digital wildcat banking and its profound implications for economic sovereignty. Leveraging digital forensics, data science, and OSINT, this work reveals who actually produces and governs cryptocurrencies—and how their collective labor reshapes value and risk. It explores the forces behind decentralized money, the vulnerabilities these systems introduce, and the future role of state-issued currencies in an era of rapid monetary transformation.Reflecting on the project Quinn notes:"I've been working on this for well over a year now, and while it is still in development, the basic outline is complete. I make some pretty provocative claims, like arguing that global forces first emerging in the 1970s lead us inexorably to this point where the labour required to produce and govern new money has become involuted[1]. It’s a unique project that reveals how new money is made and details the implications for banks, nation states, and society. I also have some fun stories to share, like my effort to vampire attack Trump's WLFI token or my reverse engineering of the FBI's Operation Token Mirrors."[1] Involution; the theory from Clifford Geertz where, in the original context, rice production becomes internally competitive and the processes require more labour without an increase in output - analogous to this story of technological development and precarious technological labour. I argue that the operational infrastructure of crypto expands to require more labour, despite no correlated increase in output. Thus, crypto overtakes national currencies not by meeting a market demand, but by accommodating excess labour supply.Notes, extra questions, and further reading:Quinn’s homepage - https://iqdupont.comChina’s “Involuted” Generation by Yi-Ling Lu | The New Yorker Published MAY 14The president and the billion-dollar crypto businesses – How the Trump companies made $1bn from crypto by Joe Miller and Alex Rogers in Washington, Paul Caruana Galizia, Nikou Asgari, Eade Hemingway, Oliver Hawkins and Chris Cook in London | FT.com Published OCT 16 2025"Overcapacity" or "involution"? How China's manufacturing suffers from over-competition Tracing the roots and perils by Elena Wang and Nina Chen | Baiguan.news Published APR 18 2024AcknowledgementsMusic Title: CrazyMixArtist: Sandbox Korg AbletonSource:  CrazyMix.aifLicense: : CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Cover Art Title: Inspired by Wordpress DefaultsArtist: Allen HigginsSource: CITO-podcast-STS.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.

Our hosts for this episode are William Mugan and Grace Gunne from the BSc UCD Economics and Finance class.Today, we are very pleased to welcome Jane Antova from IBM Consulting and colleagues Angela Stakelum and Bernadette Keating.First, Jane, can you share a little of your own story and starting out in IBM?So, what does a day in the life look like? These days, do you find yourself needing more, or less interaction with technology specialists to get the job done? Can you talk about typical sources of information and scale or size of datasets?Can you talk about the tools used for modelling, economic simulations, machine learning, and use of AI?Do you think that programming skills necessary or nice-to-have?We have some time for questions from the audience…Before we finish, is there anything further you'd like to add? (favourite pods, blogs, channels, books)Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us today.Notes, extra questions, and further reading:IBM Skills Build - https://skillsbuild.org (free learning courses and resources)PL/I – Programming Language OneAcknowledgementsMusic Title: First TakeArtist: Debajyoti Biswas and Michael O'NeillSource:  mis.aup3License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Cover Art Title: Complex collageArtist: Allen HigginsSource: JaneAntova-IBM.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.

Our hosts are Tara O’Reilly and Jack Kavanagh. Welcome to the Economics and Finance class.Today, we are very pleased to welcome Raul Afonso, Chartered Financial Analyst and Chief Economist at MFW (Multi Family Wealth). MFW is an investment firm providing investment services on managed accounts and investment funds. Thank you for coming in to speak to us Raul. Can you share a little of your own story, how you came to Ireland and talk about the tools you use in your role as Economist and Financial Analyst?[Raul opens with self-introduction and present some slides e.g. asset allocation, fund management, showcase doing analysis on output from Bloomberg]I have a question; would you say that programming skills are necessary or just nice-to-have? Could you share some key information sources you think we as Economics and Finance students should know about and follow?With the time left we’d like to open it to questions from the audience…(question from audience)(question from audience)Before we finish, is there anything further you'd like to add?Well, this has been an informative talk. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your thoughts and experience with us today. Notes, extra questions, and further reading:Key books mentioned?Key pods, articles mentioned?Other links…Multi Family Wealth – the investment management company - https://mfw.iehttps://yardeni.com/charts/feds-stock-valuation-model/https://www.ft.com/alphavillehttps://www.zerohedge.com – the most famous blog in finance.https://www.cfasociety.org/portugal/homeAcknowledgementsMusic Title: First TakeArtist: Debajyoti Biswas and Michael O'NeillSource:  mis.aup3License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Cover Art Title: Class vignetteArtist: Allen HigginsSource: RaulAfonso.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.

Welcome to Design Talk. This episode resurrects a recording from the College of Business Intercultural Forum bite-sized workshop series, session 7. A conversation with Jacob Eisenberg and Allen Higgins on “adapting experiential learning to the digital classroom”. The talk was hosted by Kathleen O’Reilly and Linda Yang.Key takeaways:Students benefit from being in control of at least some of the settings within which learning experiences unfold so, consider using multiple apps rather than integrated systems, for example, separate the video presence experience (e.g. Zoom or Teams) from the digital whiteboard from the shared document.We should encourage experimentation with tools, old and new alike.Experiment with multiple means of engagement like polls, MCQs, discussion boards but feel free to drop a tool if you feel it doesn’t work well.Always be seeking copious feedback from learners all the time. The difficulties or challenges they encounter may be intrinsic to the learning process rather than problems to solve but just knowing where they are in the learning process is valuable; for example, are they stuck, is there a shared misunderstanding or misconception, or knowing who has made progress so they might act as a catalyst for the wider group.Use breakout rooms tactically to scale up and scale down groups to sizes appropriate to the activity.AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Monologue Lu-Fugi octave climb with extra notes with wa wa with other tweaksArtist: Allen HigginsSource:  introoutroLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0  License note: Includes derivative work from KORG Monologue/Sound presets by KORG Inc. permitted under Terms of Use (https://korg.shop/terms-of-use) Section 2: “Derivative works and their authors benefit in turn from the full protection of copyright without prejudicing the rights of the original work's author”.Cover Art Title: Complex collageArtist: Allen HigginsSource: vignette_version.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Monologue Lu-Fugi octave climb with extra notes with wa wa with other tweaksArtist: Allen HigginsSource:  introoutroLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0  License note: Includes derivative work from KORG Monologue/Sound presets by KORG Inc. permitted under Terms of Use (https://korg.shop/terms-of-use) Section 2: “Derivative works and their authors benefit in turn from the full protection of copyright without prejudicing the rights of the original work's author”.Cover Art Title: Complex collageArtist: Allen HigginsSource: vignette_version.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part, you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast.