Technology guest lectures

Applied technology in a business context

Digital strategy and operations are the beating heart of an organisation and enable new business models, services, and products to operate efficiently and competitively. These lectures aim to offer practical insights into drivers of successful digital transformation, operations and innovation in a business-oriented technology ecosystem. Students will gain insights into the cross-section between business and technology at Norges Bank Investment Management and will have the opportunity to engage with different technology experts. The lectures suit IT students in their first years of an higher education.

Stand-alone guest lectures or lecture series:

Business-driven operations and development

Technology is a key component of delivering impactful change to a business. We will discuss the importance of understanding end-users’ needs, product and service offerings with an emphasis on joint project ownership, and two-way collaboration between business and technology units.

Adapting industry trends

We will outline Norges Bank Investment Management’s journey in application development, business-driven development and working methods. How do we monitor technology trends, how do we choose what to adopt, and what impact does the business have on these decisions?

Balancing business and cloud technology

Norges Bank Investment Management transitioned to a cloud-based platform in 2018, dramatically changing the technology landscape of our organisation. We will analyse the drivers behind the transition to the cloud and outline how a large technological transition can be achieved with minimal impact on business activities.

The life of an investment decision

The financial markets never sleep. How do you operate a global investment fund around the clock, across geographies and in different time zones? Students will be given an introduction to the technology that powers the large investment machine of Norges Bank Investment Management. We will review the trade-offs between the adoption of modern technology, security, robustness, resources and cost implications, and how these choices ultimately affect performance.

Norges Bank Investment Management's technology ecosystem

What are the pros and cons of internal development vs buying off-the-shelf products? What solutions have we created internally, and why? What are the factors that impact these decisions? In this lecture, we will demonstrate some of the critical projects and workflows at Norges Bank Investment Management, such as trading and risk systems, decision support systems, and some of our most innovative IT projects.

Financial intelligence

In the marketplace for financial intelligence, we are seeing a rapid evolution of tools for decision support and trade implementation, and a growing need for immediate and correct information. In this lecture, we will demonstrate our technological setup for incorporating external data seamlessly with our own proprietary data, which is an important competitive advantage for Norges Bank Investment Management.

Cloud technology

The world’s leading companies are leveraging cloud technology to become quicker at change, more scalable and more responsive to customer demands. At its core, the cloud is about highly automated IT infrastructure, but how do we as IT professionals fit into this landscape? At a time when most companies still use physical servers and infrastructure, we will discuss the application of cloud technology at Norges Bank Investment Management, how cloud technology is changing the IT landscape, and how businesses can change with it. The lectures suit IT students in their first years of an higher education.No prior knowledge of the topic is required.

Stand-alone lectures or lecture series:

Basic introduction to the cloud

We will review the history of cloud technology and the difference between physical data centres and the cloud, and how businesses might already be in the cloud without thinking about it. Students will also gain an overview of the core skills needed to work with cloud technology.

Cloud technology at Norges Bank Investment Management

In this session, we will review why we chose to transition to a cloud-based technology platform, our strategy and key learnings.

The future of cloud technology

Students will gain insights into the future of cloud technology, how it will change, and the expectations and opportunities the technology creates for businesses.

Solution architecture

“Architecture is about the important stuff (whatever that is)” – Ralph Johnson
Within a technology organisation, there will be many definitions of architecture and multiple kinds of solution architects. Common to all is the objective to design, communicate and implement a vision for the future state of the solutions, infrastructure and processes that support the mission of the organisation. In this lecture, we will demonstrate how solution architecture is applied in a world-class investment fund. We will also discuss how to combine different types of architecture, how rapid technological change affects architecture work, and possible career paths. The lecture suit IT students in their first years of an higher education. No prior knowledge of solution architecture is required.