News
FiMaTUM alumni club course: Introduction to Python for Quants
June 15 - 17, 2023 at Riskfactory in Garching
No costs
For all Math students (Bachelor and Master) and Ph.D. students
Python has eaten the world: data science, scientific computing, databases, machine learning, HTTP APIs - all areas where python is heavily used.
It is therefore an invaluable tool for quants in their daily work.
This course offered by the FiMaTUM alumni club teaches beginners and intermediates the basics of python, introduces the most important packages for data science, and will prepare you to start working with machine learning tools. We have tutors with many years of experience using python in a professional context. They will help you learn python and prepare you for your career as a quant!
The course will happen on two afternoons and one Saturday from 15th until 17th of June at Riskfactory in Garching and is free of charge. Please register by sending an email to fimatum-alumni.ma@tum.de so we can plan ahead. More information will be sent to all registered participants in May.
FIM Excursion to ERGO Group in Düsseldorf & Vista Plant in Venlo
From February 21st to 24th, Prof. Dr Zagst, the 16th and 17th cohort of the Finance and Information Management (FIM) Master's program participated in a field trip to ERGO headquarter in Düsseldorf and Vista's factory in Venlo, Netherlands. The purpose of this trip was to learn more about ERGO and Vista's effort in digital transformation.
The first day was started by a welcoming speech by Prof. Dr Zagst and Andreas Doppler, ERGO's Head of Talent Acquisition and Employer Branding, and was followed by a general keynote speech on ERGO's cooperation with digital ventures in product development. Two subsequent keynote speeches were given to motivate the students tackling the follow-up cases: solutions increasing digital component on policy and claim management and opportunities and risks applying large language models (LLM) for insurance purposes. The students formed five groups, engaged in heated case discussions and presented their solutions in front of the fellow students and ERGO representatives. The agenda at ERGO was concluded by a tour on its headquarter history and art collection.
On the 23d of February, FIM students visited Vista's factory in Venlo, Netherlands, where they were welcomed by a team of staff from data analytics and plant management, led by Ferry Cox, manager at care in manufacturing. The day continued with an introduction of Vista's journey on digital transformation, composition of its Data and Analytics team (DnA), and history of the Venlo plant. After watching a security demonstration, the crew split into four teams, taking turns to have a site-wide tour, trace data utilization in the order-to-delivery process, engage in a case discussion on customer experience enhancing and efficiency optimization, and provide feedbacks on actual orders generated. The trip was concluded by a brief closing session.
The trip belongs to a series of company visits that promotes uniqueness of the FIM program - students visit corporations on-site and discuss with professionals the newest, most relevant and exciting industry practices in-depth.
Written by FIM-Marketing-Team
KIU Innovate Business Forum October 26 - 27, 2022 in Kutaisi, Georgia
From October 26th to 27th, Professor Zagst and class representatives of the 16th cohort of the FIM study program (FIM), Anaís García González and Philipp Wiegand, attended the KUI Business Forum to represent FIM and demonstrate how it has successfully bridged the gap between academia and business over the past 15 years. The KIU Innovate Business Forum was organized by the Kutaisi International University (KIU) in partnership with the U.S. Embassy's University Capacity Building Program and TUM International GmbH. As part of the KIU Innovate initiative, the conference focused on promoting entrepreneurship and innovation at KIU and in Georgia. The forum brought together a diverse group of attendees, including government officials, industry leaders, executives from international organizations, financial institutions, major international companies, and university representatives. It served as a platform for building connections between academia and industry, both nationally and internationally, and helped to develop the young university and Georgia’s innovation ecosystems.
In his presentation, "Best Practices of University-Industry Collaboration," Professor Zagst explained how he and the chair of financial mathematics has managed to build long-term relationships with industry partners in various forms, such as large career fairs and long-term research cooperations. Afterwards, the two students discussed their perspective on fruitful university and industry collaboration.
Professor Zagst is the KIU Finance and Information Management Program Lead at KIU. During the forum, he and his students met with the dean of the KIU School of Management to discuss what makes the FIM program so unique, including the social projects, soft skills, and close collaboration with industry partners. Additionally, interested undergraduate students at KIU had the opportunity to pose their questions to the two TUM students.
Excursion to ERGO Nuremberg
After roughly two years of online events, on 3rd of June, 13 TUM students accompanied by TUM representatives participated in the first of hopefully many more in-person events offered by ERGO: An excursion to ERGO Nuremberg on the topic “Revolutionizing the insurance market: A product life cycle”. Throughout the day, five interesting presentations given by ERGO representatives and a visit of the ERGO call center took place.
After a very warm welcome at Nuremberg, the first two talks gave an overview over the health insurance products and their calculation. The highlight of these two talks was the presentation of a supplementary dental insurance that can be bought after a claim has happened. Then, John-Paul Pieper, a member of the management board, held a very impressive and informative presentation about sales strategies of ERGO products and was thereafter available for questions during the lunch break in which a delicious buffet was set up. After the break, the students were given a tour of the call center rooms and learned how the utilization of the call center is estimated with the help of call distributions. The last talk was about the use of artificial intelligence within customer service and demonstrated the growing importance of machine learning techniques in the insurance industry.
Moreover, during the event one could feel that both ERGO representatives and TUM students tremendously enjoyed the in-person event and the networking opportunities.
All in all, a successful day! Many thanks to ERGO, the ERGO Activity Team and the TUM Chair of Mathematical Finance for making this event possible!
Written by: Katharina Papst, TUM B.Sc. Mathematics student & excursion participant.
Prof. Dr. Matthias Scherer is DAV Trusted Lecturer
The examination boards of the German Actuarial Association (DAV) for the subjects "Insurance Mathematics" and "Financial Mathematics and Risk Management" confirmed the activity of Prof. Dr. Matthias Scherer as DAV Trusted Lecturer (DAV-Vertrauensdozent) for the next three years. This implies that we are allowed to recognize partial examinations for becoming an actuary on the basis of lectures in the Master "Mathematical Finance and Actuarial Science". Further information can be found here.
Best presentation award at the 11th Conference in Actuarial Science and Finance in Samos
The Conference in Actuarial Science and Finance takes place every two years as part of a joint collaboration between the University of the Aegean, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kobenhavns Universitet and New York University. It is a forum for state-of-the-art results in the areas of insurance, finance and risk management, and attracts top academicians and practitioners from every corner of the world.
The scientific committee of the 11th Edition of the conference, held in Karlovasi (island of Samos, Greece) awarded Gabriela A. Zeller, PhD candidate at Chair of Mathematical Finance of the Technical University of Munich, with the 1st prize of the Best Presentation Awards for young researchers. Her joint work with Prof. Matthias Scherer (TUM) titled “Optimal price structure of cyber insurance policies with risk mitigation services” analyses under which conditions it can be profitable for an insurance company to subsidize pre- and post-incident services within cyber insurance policies.
Quant Finance Master’s Guide 2022
The professors of our department are always working to make the Master's programme "Mathematical Finance and Actuarial Science" visible in international rankings. We are very pleased that the master's programme is the only German academic programme to be listed in the Risk Magazine ranking ( https://www.risk.net/quantitative-finance/7905251/quant-finance-masters-guide-2022 ). You can find out whether the TU Munich is actually the best German university for prospective quants on the website of efinancialcareers (https://www.efinancialcareers.de/nachrichten/2022/05/ist-die-tu-munchen-die-beste-deutsche-uni-fur-angehende-quants ).
Adjunct professorship at the Technical University of Munich
At the suggestion of the Faculty of Mathematics, PD Dr. Aleksey Min was appointed as an apl. professor at the Technical University of Munich in February 2022. Our chair congratulates Prof. Dr. Aleksey Min on this title and wishes him further success in research and teaching.