Morgan State University’s Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management has officially announced the opening of its new Center for the Study for Blockchain and Financial Technology — better known as the FinTech Center and the first-ever to exist at a HBCU.
According to Black Enterprise, the FinTech Center first opened up in 2019. The center is now ready to commence classes this semester, which will all be dedicated to the study of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and the digital finance industry.
The university will reportedly partner with Silicon Valley FinTech company Ripple and assist the Graves School of Business with building out a specialized curriculum.
Additionally, Morgan plans to expand academic courses and extend scholarships to both faculty and students who wish to pursue a career in blockchain, cryptocurrency, digital payment, and other financial technology areas.
After successfully launching a pilot program, the FinTech Center is also hosting its Battle Of The Cryptos 2 — a cryptocurrency trading competition for HBCU students to learn about cryptocurrency investing, trading, and portfolio management financial fitness and literacy, and have the chance to win crypto-cash prizes, its website states.
“The students participating will set up accounts with Binance, who will put cryptocurrency into those accounts, and the students have from March 1 to early May to trade those currencies,” Judith Schnidman, program coordinator of the FinTech Center — told Black Enterprise. “Those with the best portfolios at the end will win crypto cash to keep trading.”
Cryptocurrency has undoubtedly increased in popularity in recent years, and more celebrity and public figures are jumping into the field to build awareness around it.
Schnidman shares with Black Enterprise that by giving HBCU students more exposure to cryptocurrency, they can get a leg up on the next generation of currency to set them up for a successful future of financial freedom.
“It’s really opening a lot of doors at a really interesting and critical point both with blockchain technology and with interest in becoming more diverse in high tech fields,” she added. “There’s a lot of interest in hiring our students, both on the computer programming side and the business marketing and finance side. So we work across all of those disciplines to help students find their place in this field.”
Morgan State is setting the standard for other HBCUs and proving to be a model example of how to better prepare HBCU students to not only exit college with a game plan, but to also stay a step ahead of their non-Black counterparts.
For more information about the FinTech Center, click here.
