Exploring the evolving role of FINOS in the financial sector

When most people hear “foundation,” they think of structure, compliance, and maybe a dash of bureaucracy. But foundations can also be engines of innovation—especially when they transition from being enforcers of governance to becoming enablers of guidance.

That’s exactly what’s happening with FINOS (the Fintech Open Source Foundation).

Originally formed to accelerate collaboration in financial services through open source, FINOS has steadily expanded its scope. It’s no longer just a home for code or a neutral convener. It’s now a guiding force, helping the industry navigate the increasing complexity of open collaboration, secure development, regulatory alignment, and emerging technology.

Let’s unpack this evolution—and why initiatives like the AI Readiness (AIR) Governance Framework are key signals of where FINOS is heading.

Beyond Compliance: Toward Coordinated Innovation

In highly regulated environments like financial services, governance has traditionally meant limiting risk. But in open source ecosystems, that’s only part of the story. Governance needs to balance control with creativity, and FINOS has been pioneering how to do exactly that.

From code repositories and contribution models to intellectual property protections and contributor agreements, FINOS provides guardrails that ensure transparency and security. But now it’s going further—stepping into the role of strategic guide as institutions begin to grapple with open source AI, data governance, and responsible innovation.

AIR: A Compass in the AI Wild West

The AIR (AI Readiness) Governance Framework is one of FINOS’ most forward-looking efforts. As the financial sector races to adopt generative AI and machine learning, the risks and responsibilities are multiplying:

• Who is accountable when AI makes a bad trade?
• How do we align AI development with regulatory expectations?
• Can we collaborate across firms without compromising trust, safety, or IP?

AIR answers these questions not with static rules, but with living guidance: a framework that maps common threats, shared responsibilities, and modular controls in YAML files designed to evolve alongside the technologies they govern.

By codifying best practices in a machine-readable format, AIR represents a new kind of governance—one that’s collaborative, programmable, and auditable. It’s a playbook for responsible AI that can be adopted across institutions, projects, and even countries.

Why This Matters Now

As open source becomes a core component of digital infrastructure in finance, the stakes are high:

• Regulators are scrutinizing AI usage and third-party dependencies.
• Institutions are expected to maintain security, fairness, and explainability—while accelerating innovation.
• The complexity of integrating open tools with internal systems keeps growing.

FINOS is no longer just managing this landscape—it’s shaping it. Through projects like AIR, Open RegTech, CCC, Calm and FDC3, it’s building a shared vocabulary, a common control plane, and a trusted space for pre-competitive collaboration.

From Foundation to Force Multiplier

FINOS’ evolution reflects a broader truth: in a world defined by open ecosystems and exponential tech, foundations must do more than host projects. They must guide industries through transformation.

That means:

• Curating not just code, but culture
• Standardizing not just specs, but shared mental models
• Supporting not just compliance, but confidence

From governance to guidance, FINOS is becoming a force multiplier for financial institutions ready to lead—not just follow—in the age of open source and AI.

Final Thought

In an industry that can be slow to change but quick to blame, FINOS offers something rare: an architecture for trust, built in the open.

And that’s what makes it more than just a foundation. It’s becoming a north star for those navigating the intersection of finance, technology, and transparency.

In the world of cold calling, there’s an unspoken pressure to act fast. Get to the pitch. Share the value prop. Close the deal. But in the rush to act, we often forget the single most powerful move in any human interaction:

A question.

Why Questions Beat Action in Cold Calls

Imagine this:

You pick up the phone, a stranger launches into a rehearsed script, and before you can say “I’m in a meeting,” they’re already three bullet points deep into why their product is perfect for you. You don’t feel seen. You don’t feel heard. You definitely don’t feel intrigued.

Now flip it.

You answer the phone and hear: “Can I ask—what’s the biggest challenge you’re facing in [your role/industry] this quarter?”

You pause. You’re not being sold. You’re being asked. Suddenly, this isn’t a cold call—it’s a warm conversation.

The Psychology: Curiosity Is Disarming

Humans are wired to respond to questions. Our brains crave completion—when asked something, we instinctively want to answer. A well-placed question shifts the call from interruption to interaction. It invites curiosity instead of resistance.

When you ask before you act, you signal humility. You show that you’re not here to push—you’re here to understand.

Action Without Context = Missed Opportunity

Cold calls fail when action precedes context. You might be pushing a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, or worse, solving the wrong pain point entirely.

Example: Selling a CRM to someone who just finished a 12-month Salesforce migration? You just blew your chance at trust. But if you had asked first—“What tools are you using for customer management right now?”—you’d have known to pivot or park the pitch.

The First Question Isn’t Just Tactical—It’s Strategic

A good cold call isn’t about selling on the spot. It’s about opening a door to a longer conversation. Your first question should:

• Create relevance
• Show respect
• Reveal context
• Signal partnership

In short, a question does what a sales deck never can—it builds rapport.

Good Questions to Start With

• “What’s top of mind for you in [topic] lately?”
• “Are you currently exploring solutions around [area]?”
• “How are you handling [specific industry trend or challenge]?”
• “What’s working well for you—and what’s not?”

These aren’t traps. They’re invitations. And they make your counterpart feel like a person, not a prospect.

In Closing: Curiosity Over Closer Mode

The best cold callers aren’t aggressive. They’re curious. They don’t lead with action—they lead with insight-seeking. They know the sale starts with connection, and connection starts with a simple question.

So the next time you pick up the phone, remember: Your first move shouldn’t be a pitch. It should be a question.

That’s how you go from cold to curious—and then to close.

Starting the balancing act of humility, pride, and purpose for the second year – so what does being MVP feel like?

It feels like…

✨ Imposter syndrome and impact sitting at the same table.

✨ Being surrounded by brilliance—and still being asked to lead.

✨ Saying “yes” to late-night hackathons, weekend meetups, and inboxes full of “Hey, quick question…”

It feels like walking a tightrope between staying humble and standing proud.

It means:

• You don’t have all the answers, but you do have the passion to find them.
• You’re not just using Microsoft tech – you’re shaping how others learn and build with it.
• You’re part of a global family where everyone is rooting for everyone else’s growth.

Being a Microsoft MVP isn’t a finish line. It’s a responsibility. A signal. An invitation to give more, share more, build more.

And maybe most importantly—it feels like home in a community where innovation meets generosity.

💙 To all the MVPs: what does it feel like for you?

Remember the old internet joke: “Can I download more RAM?” It was a sarcastic jab at novice users, since RAM is hardware, not software – or at least, it used to be. But in today’s cloud-native, software-defined, virtualized world, that punchline is starting to look outdated. Because now, thanks to virtual machines (VMs), you can essentially download more RAM – and CPU, and storage – in minutes.

Let’s explore how we got here, and why VMs offer so much more flexibility than bare-metal machines.

💽 From Physical Boxes to Fluid Resources

Bare-metal servers – the traditional hardware boxes – are like fixed real estate. Once you’ve bought a machine with 32GB of RAM and 8 CPU cores, that’s it. Need more? Hope you enjoy downtime and paperwork.

Virtual machines changed the game by introducing a layer of abstraction. By decoupling the hardware from the software via hypervisors like VMware ESXi, KVM, or Hyper-V, VMs allow you to provision, resize, clone, snapshot, and destroy machines like Lego bricks – no screwdriver required.

🧠 Need More RAM? Just Ask.

When running a VM in a cloud or private virtualized environment:

• You can dynamically increase memory allocation without replacing the machine.
• You can scale horizontally by spinning up more identical VMs with orchestration tools like Terraform or Kubernetes.
• You can resize vertically by adjusting vCPU and memory configurations in real-time or with minimal downtime.

Compare that to bare-metal: increasing RAM means physical access, maintenance windows, and possibly complete reinstallation. The VM path is “click → apply → done.” Welcome to infrastructure on demand.

⚙️ Other Superpowers of VMs

RAM flexibility is just one piece of the puzzle. VMs come packed with capabilities bare-metal setups can only dream of:

• Snapshots & Rollbacks: You can checkpoint a VM before a risky upgrade and roll back if something breaks.
• Live Migration: Move a VM from one host to another without downtime (think of it like teleporting your running app).
• Template-based Deployment: Spin up pre-configured environments in seconds – perfect for dev/test/prod parity.
• Resource Overcommitment: Share more resources than physically available, banking on not all VMs peaking at once.
• Isolation: Each VM runs independently, boosting security and stability.

🧩 The Cost of Flexibility

Of course, this agility comes with some trade-offs. VMs add a performance overhead due to the virtualization layer. For ultra-low latency, high-throughput systems (think high-frequency trading or certain HPC workloads), bare metal still has a seat at the table.

But for the vast majority of workloads – web servers, microservices, dev/test environments, business applications – the benefits of VMs far outweigh the minimal overhead.

🚀 The Cloud is Your Playground

Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud took this VM flexibility and turned it into a utility. Need a 64-core, 256GB RAM machine with a GPU? Spin it up in 2 minutes. Done with it? Deallocate and stop paying. It’s like renting supercomputers by the hour.

And yes, the joke is now reality: you really can download more RAM today – as long as you’re running virtualized.

🧠 Final Thought

In the past, your infrastructure was defined by the limits of the metal. Today, it’s defined by your imagination and configuration settings. Virtual machines gave us elastic, software-defined infrastructure – the first step on the journey toward containers, serverless, and beyond.

So next time someone asks “can I download more RAM?” smile and say: “If it’s virtualized – yes, yes you can.” 💻⚡

In today’s hyper-connected world, the most valuable currency is not money — it’s attention. You only have so much of it. And every second of it is being bought, sold, and optimized for. Welcome to the attention economy, where your focus is the product, and everyone — from politicians to algorithms — is in the business of hijacking it.

Attention as a Commodity

The internet promised infinite information. But your brain didn’t scale with it. So, platforms didn’t compete to inform you — they competed to hold you. From infinite scroll to algorithmic feeds, the digital world isn’t designed for exploration; it’s designed for retention.

Elections in the Attention Economy

In a democratic system, informed decision-making requires deliberate thinking. But in the attention economy, elections become performative battles for virality:

• Soundbites outperform substance.
• Outrage spreads faster than nuance.
• Clickbait headlines influence more than policy platforms.

Campaigns now operate more like marketing blitzes than civic discussions. Attention — not truth — is the metric. And as political messaging is tuned to hack the feed, what wins elections isn’t always what builds democracies.

AI: The New Arms Dealer

Artificial Intelligence didn’t invent the attention economy. But it is supercharging it.

Recommendation engines on YouTube, TikTok, and news platforms use AI to optimize what content gets surfaced to you — not based on what’s good for you, but what keeps you watching. AI doesn’t care if it’s cat videos, conspiracy theories, or climate denial. It just tracks what holds your attention and feeds you more.

When AI models are trained on human engagement signals, they learn not what’s true — but what works.

And now with generative AI, we face a new era of synthetic attention weapons: deepfakes, automated troll farms, hyper-personalized disinformation. The scale and speed are unprecedented.

Capitalism: Optimized for Distraction

Capitalism rewards what makes money. And in the attention economy, that’s what captures and holds attention, not what nurtures minds or communities.

Social media platforms monetize engagement, not enlightenment. News outlets depend on clicks, not comprehension. The economic incentives are misaligned with long-term public good — and they know it.

Attention is extracted like oil: drilled, refined, and commodified.

And just like with oil, there’s a spillover. The pollution here is cognitive:

• Shorter attention spans.
• Polarized societies.
• An epidemic of misinformation.

In a capitalist attention economy, distraction is profitable, and depth is a liability.

Reclaiming Attention: A Civic Imperative

If democracy, sanity, and critical thought are to survive, we need to stop treating attention as infinite and start treating it as sacred.

• Educators must teach media literacy and digital hygiene.
• Technologists must design for well-being, not just retention.
• Policymakers must consider attention rights and algorithmic accountability.
• Citizens must remember: what you give your attention to shapes not only your worldview — it shapes the world.

Final Thought

In a world where attention drives elections, trains AI, and fuels capitalism, choosing where you focus is not just a personal act — it’s a political one.

So next time you scroll, pause.

Your attention is not just being spent. It’s being shaped. And in the attention economy, that might just be the most powerful decision you make all day.

If you asked me in the recent two years what i think about AI and the future of humanity, I routinely asked back – have you read Manna?

When Marshall Brain penned Manna in 2003, it read like a speculative fable—half warning, half dream. Two decades later, this short novel reads less like science fiction and more like a mirror held up to our present. In the age of generative AI, ubiquitous automation, and a deepening conversation about universal basic income (UBI), Manna has become unsettlingly prescient. Its core questions—What happens when machines take over work? Who benefits? Who decides?—are now the questions of our time.

The Premise: Dystopia or Utopia?

Manna presents two divergent futures springing from the same source: automation. In the first, American society embraces algorithmic management systems like “Manna,” designed to optimize labor in fast food and retail. These systems strip workers of autonomy, reducing humans to programmable labor nodes. Eventually, displaced workers are warehoused in government facilities with minimal rights and maximum surveillance.

The second vision—dubbed the “Australia Project”—offers a counterpoint: a post-work society where automation liberates rather than subjugates. Here, humans live in abundance, guided by brain-computer interfaces, pursuing meaning, community, and creativity. In both cases, the robots are the same. The outcomes are not.

Technology: From Manna to Modern AI

In Manna, the namesake system automates management by giving employees minute instructions: “Take two steps forward. Pick up the trash. Turn left.” It’s a crude but plausible stand-in for early workplace AI.

Fast forward to today. We now have machine vision, voice recognition, and AI scheduling systems actively managing logistics, retail, warehousing, customer service, and even hiring. The leap from “Manna” to real-world tools like Amazon’s warehouse algorithms or AI-powered hiring software is not conceptual—it’s chronological.

But today’s generative AI adds a new dimension. Large language models don’t just manage human work—they can replace it. They can write, code, design, and even make judgments, blurring the line between assistant and actor. This is no longer about optimizing physical labor; it’s about redefining knowledge work, creativity, and decision-making. In Manna, workers lost control of their bodies. In our era, we risk losing control of our voices, thoughts, and choices.

Societal Implications: Surveillance, Control, and Choice

Marshall Brain’s dystopia emerges not from the technology itself, but from who controls it and to what end. The core mechanism of control in the book is not violence, but data-driven predictability. People are kept compliant not through force, but through optimization.

This insight feels eerily familiar. Today, workplace surveillance software can track eye movements, keystrokes, and productivity metrics. Gig economy platforms use opaque algorithms to assign tasks, suspend workers, or cut pay. The managerial logic of Manna—atomizing labor, maximizing efficiency, removing agency—is increasingly embedded in our systems.

And yet, we still have a choice.

The Australia Project, Manna’s utopia, is not magic—it’s policy. It’s a society that chooses to distribute the fruits of automation broadly, instead of concentrating them. It’s a place where AI augments human flourishing rather than optimizing it out of existence. The implication is profound: the same AI that can surveil and suppress can also support and empower.

How It Maps to Today’s AI Debate

We’re currently living through the early moments of a global debate: What kind of future are we building with AI?

• If AI replaces jobs, do we build social systems like UBI to ensure dignity and meaning?
• If AI amplifies productivity, do we let a handful of tech owners capture all the surplus?
• If AI becomes a decision-maker, who governs the governance?

In many ways, the world is caught between Manna’s two futures. Some nations experiment with basic income pilots. Others double down on productivity surveillance. AI policy frameworks are emerging, but few are bold enough to ask what kind of society we want—only how to mitigate risk. But perhaps the greater risk is to automate our way into the future without choosing where we want to go.

The Deeper Lesson: Technology Is Never Neutral

Manna is not a story about robots. It’s a story about values. The same tools can lead to oppression or liberation depending on how they are deployed. In a time when technology often feels inevitable and ungovernable, Brain reminds us: inevitability is a narrative, not a law. The future is programmable, not just by code, but by collective will.

If Manna offers any enduring wisdom, it is this: The systems we build are reflections of the intentions we encode into them. Machines will optimize—but only for what we ask them to. The question is not whether AI will change society. It is whether we will change society alongside it.

Final Thought

In the race to adopt AI, we must not forget to ask: For whom is this future being built? We stand on the threshold of either a digital dictatorship or a renaissance of human possibility. Manna showed us both. It’s now up to us to choose which chapter we write next.