The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 148

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Moshe A. Milevsky
the Deputy Director of the Fields Institute. He suggested that
I come visit the Institute sometime in 1997 (or perhaps it was
1998.) I attended a few of the financial mathematics seminars
and was hooked!
The idea behind the IFID Centre, hatched with the
help of Tom Salisbury and Ben Schwartz, was to harness
the network of mathematicians within the Fields Institute
to help solve real-world problems in personal finance and
insurance. Yes, there was a lot of advanced mathematics
being used in corporate finance and risk management as well
as government finance and economics, but the idea was to
model and formulate real-world problems that individuals face
in their daily life using the language and tools of mathematics.
Deep questions in the areas of insurance, pensions, mortgages,
retirement income strategies, and asset allocation all had a
personal dimension that had been (mostly) unexplored by
mathematicians. Indeed, it was all quite innovative and the
Fields Institute provided a great home as well as a launching
pad for the Fintech company, QWeMA Group, which was sold
to CANNEX Financial in 2014.
Alas, the landscape in the financial academic research
industry has shifted noticeably over the last decade, and
there are now many outstanding institutions and University
departments led by leading scholars in North America
(and globally) with an active research focus on personal
investments, retirement income, wealth management, and
insurance. Like the IFID Centre, they too are commissioned to
write research papers, support graduate and doctoral students,
host conferences, give educational presentations, and engage in
outreach with the media and popular press.
But I like to think we were one of the first in this
space, with the help and hospitality of the Fields Institute.
Indeed, during our time at the Institute we hosted over
18 conferences and seminars, while writing over 45 research