KTU opens region’s first Bloomberg Financial Markets Lab

Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) opened the first Bloomberg Financial Markets Lab in the Baltic States and Poland this week. The lab, which is located in KTU’s Faculty of Economics and Business, has a value of 90,000 Euros and will provide KTU students with unrivalled access to Bloomberg’s globally renowned analytics.

The lab hosts a Bloomberg Professional information platform. These platforms, which are used by more than 320,000 business leaders and finance professionals globally, are considered in the industry to be the best information portals available for finance and business institutions.

[quote text=”The lab hosts a Bloomberg Professional information platform. These platforms, which are used by more than 320,000 business leaders and finance professionals globally, are considered in the industry to be the best information portals available for finance and business institutions.” name_surname=”” description=”” left=””]

KTU Rector Petras Baršauskas believes that, by becoming the first university in the Baltic States and Poland to have such laboratory, KTU has further developed as an educational institution. “If in medicine we rejoice at having a new magnetic resonance spectrograph which allows us to look at genes, this laboratory has similar significance for those studying economics and business. This is a large step forward for the university”, he said at the lab’s opening.

And Bloomberg’s representative in the Baltics, Karina Collis, agrees that the lab will create valuable new learning opportunities for KTU students. “This laboratory will allow students to work in an actual economic environment. Let us take as an example the current situation in Greece. Mainstream media coverage provides very little detailed financial information. Having a Bloomberg terminal, students can see everything that occurs on the Greek markets as it happens”, explained Ms Collis.

The business community in Lithuania has responded very positively to the opening of the new Bloomberg lab. According to Darius Samuolis, KG Group management team leader, students who have had the opportunity to work with Bloomberg’s analytics tools will be able compete in the global market, not just the Lithuanian one.

“A successful career requires a more global kind of understanding than the one gained from reading the mainstream media on a daily basis. Likewise, internships in Lithuanian companies or relying on one’s personal experiences are not enough to gain a global perspective. The opportunity to feel the pace of business, to understand which new developments are important and how the market responds to them, to be exposed to the real terminology of business, including specific industries, and to complete tasks using real data; all of these are an invaluable ticket to a successful future”, stated Mr Samuolis.

Nasdaq’s Head of Baltic Markets, Arminta Saladžienė, likewise expressed her happiness that Lithuania is increasingly recognised in the world as a country with highly qualified specialists, and believes this latest development will continue this trend. “I am very glad that we are continuing to find new teaching possibilities for training highly-skilled specialists. Using this lab the students will learn to work with information like finance professionals– they will familiarise themselves with the specifics and instruments of finance, including capital markets and world exchanges, and will learn to analyse, compare and make conclusions.”

According to representatives of KTU, the Bloomberg lab is not only going to benefit students. It will enable businesses and public sector organisations to hire new employees who have been well prepared for the challenges of the economic world and have a lot of practical experience of the processes occurring in global markets. The Bloomberg talent search tool available in the lab is regularly used by more than 20,000 managers of financial institutions from various countries who are constantly searching for gifted specialists who are well versed in finance.

Read full article in Lithuanian at VZ.lt