We recently caught up with Sean Belka, Director of Fidelity Labs, to talk about his latest research. The team is working on some really interesting things! Take a look and let us know what you think or if you have any questions for Sean. Q: What is Fidelity Labs and why was it created? Sean: We are a research and innovation team that works on things that are three years out from mass adoption. We look outside Fidelity to see what startups are working on and what’s being explored inside academia. We also research big topics, like the future outlook for cloud computing or big data, for instance. We have offices in Boston, San Francisco, North Carolina, Europe and in China, and in each of those offices there are people who are looking for things that would be useful for Fidelity to bring in to research, pilot and potentially deploy. We were the first in our industry to offer an 800 number and a website. We’ve been active in mobile since the 90s. We’re always looking ahead to meet customers where they are, and where they will be. Q: Your team is behind the new Fidelity apps for Google Glass(TM) and Pebble(TM). Is the future in wearables? Sean: We think wearables are part of an interesting trend that bears watching. No pun intended! I think it’s the next thing to take off. If it does, we’ll be ahead of the game. But if it doesn’t, we’ve still learned something. We’ll have two years of learning, two years of getting our hands dirty, of building stuff. Things continue to get more convenient, smaller, and easier to access. We think that’s great. We want customers to have access to information in a way that’s easy and quick. This helps us get out there so if or when something takes off we’ve already experimented and learned and are in a better position to enhance our customer experience around the tools our customers are using. Q: Do you have any secret projects that you can share with us? Sean: We’re really interested in robotics and augmented reality. Right now, there’s a huge focus on connecting through text and video, but perhaps in the future it will be through augmented reality. These things are becoming real; it’s no longer science fiction. We think about what the implications could be for financial services. Could customers actually feel changes in the market through AR? Q: Tell us the truth; do you work in the most fun department at Fidelity? Sean: (laughs). We have fun, but it’s hard work too! Q: Where can people go to view more information about your work? Sean: FidelityLabs. Also I’d love to answer questions from your Facebook fans. Are any of our fans wearing Pebble or Glass and how do they see wearables changing the way they invest or handle money? --- Views expressed are as of today and may change based on market and other conditions. Unless otherwise noted, the opinions provided are those of the speaker or author, as applicable, and not necessarily those of Fidelity Investments. Fidelity Labs is a Fidelity Investments company and is a subsidiary of FMR LLC. Fidelity Labs provides innovative products, services, content and tools, as a service to its affiliates and as a subsidiary of FMR LLC.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 14:36:54 +0000