Below we interview Gabby, a former Wealth Planning Analyst who enrolled in Byte Academy’s Intro To Python program. Although he could not persuade his classmates, Gabby signed up for his first hackathon - the Linnia Protocol Blockchain Hackathon run by Consensys, one of the leading companies in the blockchain space. Gabby both won the hack and advanced his career. Read how he did it:
5 min read
How I Won My First Blockchain Hackathon: Newbie Hacker's Guide
Topics: Student Stories Cryptocurrency hackathon Careers Blockchain student interview
4 min read
An Overview of India's Current Banking Landscape
Guest post by Arvind Padmanabhan, from Indian Engineering Design Forum, who attended our event this week on "Demonetization and its impact on FinTech and Digital Payments" in Bangalore.
Topics: FinTech Current Events Startup Banking India
4 min read
Which Country Will Lead The FinTech Revolution?
Collaboration maybe a manifestation of competition. Hong Kong, Singapore and China race to lead the FinTech revolution. Passionate debate at Hong Kong FinTech Breakfast Briefing and The Economist #FinanceDisrupted conference
Singapore FinTech Festival
In April the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore announced that Singapore would hold its inaugural FinTech Festival in November. He made the announcement regarding the week-long global event in New York City.
Hong Kong FinTech Breakfast Briefing, Oct. 12, 2016 Princeton Club, New York City
Finovate, which holds a series of some of the largest FinTech conferences in the world debuts Finovate Asia in Hong Kong November 8. This is days before Singapore’s FinTech Festival. Between the two events many global companies already have their airplane tickets booked, so..
Hong Kong FinTech Week
Invest Hong Kong announced on September 21st that it would be holding its first “FinTech Week.” This will kick off with Finovate and end a couple days before the Singapore event. Although both Singapore and Hong Kong may say that the current atmosphere is collaborative, the FinTech event race suggests competition. This has been true historically for both countries.
Hong Kong’s FinTech Facilitation Office (FFO) Plan to promote FinTech development, Oct. 12, 2016
Hong Kong Breakfast Briefing speakers hinted at current competition when they pointed out that Hong Kong did not need to provide large subsidies to encourage companies to innovate in the country. However, Singapore “has to.”
Will China Win The FinTech Revolution?
The sense of competition thickened the next day at The Economist’s Finance Disrupted event. The theme of the day long conference, “collaborate or die” attracted a few hundred attendees paying $2200 per ticket. Viewpoints during the afternoon's Oxford style debate, “the house believes that China will win the FinTech revolution” suggested that China's domination relied heavily on mobilizing its peoples' technology and other professional skills.
Other views suggested that China is separated from global financial power players and has a long journey to advance. One of the supports for this: although the largest banks are in China the most powerful citizens don’t trust these banks. Instead, they go to American banks such as Goldman Sachs.
#FinanceDisrupted Conference by The Economist Oct. 13, 2016 New York City. Theme? “Collaborate or Die”
Other interesting points brought up that day? The Economist used to be banned in Singapore but now it is allowed. The government has relaxed its regulatory measures too. Global leaders such as Vikram Pandit, former CEO Citigroup Inc. pointed this out as reasoning for his faith in Singapore FinTech.
Vikram Pandit, Former CEO Citigroup Inc. Professing His Love For Singapore to the Editor-In-Chief of the The Economist at Finance Disrupted, Oct. 13Topics: FinTech Current Events China Hong Kong Startup Asia
3 min read
Validating Form Input With Django
Let’s say I’m making a blogging web application using Python and the web framework, Django. I want users to be able to publish “Posts” on my blogging website.
When they enter that “Post” into some sort of input form that I have on my website, I want to check the “Post” before I save it to my database.
This is a common scenario for many Django developers. How do we validate form data before we save it to a database?
There’s two common ways to do it: Either validate the Model or validate the Form.
Django has Forms and Models. Very basically, Forms are where users input data on a web application, and Models and where I actually save my information in my program.
Let’s look first at how to validate the Model:
Topics: jeff maxim Python Programming Tips django
3 min read
Engineering Your Job Search
If you’ve been keeping up with technology news, you’ve likely come across one or two articles recently about developer salary. There are some strong opinions out there.
Topics: Careers Programming Tips Job Search
1 min read
Byte Academy's MedTech Program
Learn to Code for the Medical Industry With New York City’s first MedTech Program!
Also a score for diversity as one of NYC’s top female engineers spearheads it
Byte Academy, the first programming school to teach FinTech (Financial Technology), expands course offerings by launching the first MedTech (Medical Technology) bootcamp in New York City. Curriculum will emphasize project-based learning that prepares students for careers in the MedTech and HealthTech (Healthcare Technology) fields.
Topics: FinTech Careers medtech
2 min read
Byte's Top Four Fall (Indoor) Activities
While it may still be warm enough to turn over those hamburgers on the grill, the days are getting shorter, clothes are getting darker; and, although we may resist it, fall is here. We will soon be spending more time indoors and our extracurricular activities will also be making the switch. So, how do we keep ourselves stimulated and occupied (without the sun, sand and water)?
Topics: Light Reads
7 min read
Primer: Python First Class Functions and Decorators
Python functions are a lot more flexible than you would think. They are much more than just code generation specifications for a compiler. They are full-blown objects stored in pieces of memory as such that they can be freely passed around a program and called indirectly. They also support operations that have little to do with calls at all like Attribute storage and Annotation.
Topics: Python software development functions Programming Tips
3 min read
Blockchain FAQ #1: What is a fork in the Blockchain?
In the standard software industry parlance, a software fork is just a copy of an existing project. Considering the current pre-eminence of open-source software development, a software fork can very often be carried out without explicit permission from the developer of the original project. In case of the blockchain, it is different. A blockchain fork is when a blockchain splits into two separate chains.
Topics: Bitcoin education faq Blockchain
1 min read
Are We In A Cryptocurrency Bubble?
Recently Matt Gertler, cryptocurrency attorney at Digital Asset Research answered a big question on many minds recently: are we in a cryptocurrency bubble? Particularly with the rise of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and China's recent ban on them, this has been on many minds recently.
