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Please register for this free program. After registering you will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom webinar login information.

About the Program

Professor Andreas Park will provide a brief introduction to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, providing an overview of some of the tools and apps that are available in the new world of decentralized finance. Park has recently been part of a research effort for the Bank of Canada on the design of a central-bank issued digital Loonie, and he will provide an overview of how this development together with advances in blockchain technology drive broader changes in the financial industry internationally, and discuss what changes we might expect over the next decade. He will discuss what cryptocurrencies might allow us to do and how they are being used (and misused) in the movement of wealth around the world.

About the Speaker

Andreas Park is a Professor of Finance at the University of Toronto in the Department of Management with a cross appointment to the Finance area at the U of T Rotman School of Business. He has  been a University of Toronto faculty member since 2003. His research covers empirical topics, such as the market impact of maker-taker pricing, dark orders, and high frequency trading, and theoretical topics, such as herd behavior in financial markets and the impact of trading mechanisms. Andreas has served as Co-Director of the Master of Financial Economics program at University of Toronto, and he teaches courses on Market Microstructure, Trading, Investments, Asset Pricing, and Corporate Finance. His current research focuses mostly on the impact of high frequency trading and recent market structure changes in Canadian markets. Andreas is currently a member of the Ontario Security Commission’s Market Structure Advisory Committee. He earned both his masters degree and doctorate from Cambridge University in England.

About the Moderator

Donald Cassell, a member of the ICWA Board of Directors, is a senior fellow at the Sagamore institute and director of the Africa program and Liberian initiatives there. He also oversaw the development of the Indiana-Africa Connections project, a database of over 250 Hoosier organizations with ties to Africa. Additionally he serves as the host of Sagamore‘s fellows program. Previous to his role at Sagamore, Mr. Cassell spent 20 years working as an architect in Indianapolis. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Construction Specification Institute (CSI). A native of Liberia, Mr. Cassell graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Cassell also studied at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he received his master of divinity.

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