Syllabus — Emerging Technology & Finance

Winter 2026/27

Authors

Affiliation

Prof. Dr. Andre Guettler

Institute of Strategic Management and Finance, Ulm University

Oliver Padmaperuma

Institute of Strategic Management and Finance, Ulm University

Course information

Title	Emerging Technology & Finance
Term	Winter 2026/27
Level	Bachelor
ECTS	6
Instructors	Prof. Dr. Andre Guettler, Oliver Padmaperuma
Contact	oliver.padmaperuma@uni-ulm.de, CC andre.guettler@uni-ulm.de
Location	Helmholtzstraße 18, room E60, Ulm
Time	Thursdays 14:00–15:30
Language	English

Course objectives

This course teaches Bachelor students how to read, critique, and contextualise the technologies reshaping finance today. Across six modules — agentic AI · blockchain & DeFi · fintech business models · RegTech & cybersecurity · CBDCs — every regular lecture is paired with a flipped session in which every group presents their own angle on the topic. The course trains four skills in parallel: technical literacy (what these tools actually do), business judgment (which models work and why), regulatory awareness (PSD2/3, MiCA, EU AI Act, post-quantum standards), and deliberative peer evaluation (each session’s grade is half-decided by other groups via the token mechanic).

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

1. Explain the core technologies driving emerging-finance innovation (agentic AI, blockchain & DeFi, fintech, RegTech, CBDCs) and how they interact in real products.
2. Critically assess the business viability of an emerging-finance product against its regulatory and competitive context.
3. Identify the technical, ethical, regulatory, and market risks an emerging-finance application carries — and articulate concrete mitigations.
4. Design and deliver a short, evidence-backed group presentation on an emerging-finance topic, including a concrete example or live demo and a critical evaluation.
5. Allocate peer evaluations thoughtfully and defensibly, using an explicit rubric.

Prerequisites

• Bachelor-level familiarity with introductory economics and finance (markets, prices, regulation in broad strokes)
• No coding required — this is a conceptual course
• Comfort presenting in English in front of peers (the course is taught in English)

Required materials

• A laptop for group prep work (any OS, any toolchain).
• Moodle account for announcements, slide submission, and the token-allocation quizzes.
• Reference texts — see the course homepage for the per-module reading list (Philippon, Goldfarb & Tucker, Arner et al., Agrawal et al., Harvey et al., Brunnermeier et al., BIS / ECB / NIST reports).

Timetable

Adding a new lecture folder under lectures/ automatically updates this table — no manual edits needed.

Assessment & grading

Component	Weight
Flipped-session presentations (6 × group, cumulative)	100%
Total	100%

Per flipped session, the score is computed as:

\[ \text{session-score} = 0.5 \times \frac{\text{tokens received from peers}}{\text{max possible tokens from peers that session}} \times 100 \;+\; 0.5 \times \text{lecturer-score (0–100)} \]

The final course grade is the arithmetic mean of the six session scores, mapped to the German scale.

Grading scale: German scale 1.0 (excellent) – 5.0 (fail). 4.0 is passing.

Group size: 4 students. If you don’t form a group by the end of Week 1, the lecturers will allocate you.

The token mechanic

Each group receives 20 fresh tokens per flipped session (6 × 20 = 120 tokens across the term per group). After every flipped session:

1. A Moodle quiz opens for 5 minutes, asking each group to enter the number of tokens to allocate to each other group (integer 0–20, total must equal 20).
2. No self-allocation. The quiz will reject submissions where the group allocates to itself.
3. Distribution is at the group’s discretion — all 20 to one standout group, evenly split across many, or anything in between.
4. Allocations should weigh: insight · originality · clarity · critical depth (the rubric the lecturers also apply).
5. The lecturer independently scores each presentation on 0–100.
6. End-of-term: lecturers audit allocation patterns for suspicious coordination; flagged cases trigger a review.

Policies

Attendance

Attendance at all 12 sessions is strongly recommended. Attendance at every flipped session is mandatory for the presenting group (you cannot earn a session score if your group doesn’t present). Token allocation submitted online — non-attending students cannot allocate tokens for that session.

Late submissions

Slide PDFs must be uploaded to Moodle before the flipped session begins. Late slide submissions are graded down by 10 percentage points per started 30-min period (i.e. an upload 5 min after the session start loses 10 points; 35 min late loses 20 points; etc.).

Academic integrity

All work must be the declared group’s own. Plagiarism and unauthorised AI use will be referred to the examination office. Disclosing AI assistance is required (one footnote per slide deck stating which tool was used and for what — e.g. prose polishing, brainstorming, image generation).

Token integrity

The token mechanic relies on honest peer judgment. Coordinated token-trading between groups (e.g. “you give us 15 and we give you 15 every week”) undermines the entire grade structure. End-of-term audit; flagged groups risk having peer-token scores replaced by lecturer scores for the affected weeks.

Accommodations

Students requiring accommodations should contact the instructors in the first week of term.

Contact

• Course-content questions: ask in class (preferred) or email oliver.padmaperuma@uni-ulm.de, CC andre.guettler@uni-ulm.de.
• Admin / exam-eligibility questions: studiensekretariat@uni-ulm.de.
• Technical (Moodle / IT) questions: helpdesk@uni-ulm.de.
• Moodle: all announcements, slide uploads, and the per-session token-allocation quizzes happen on the course Moodle page.