In her almost nine years with the company, Vinita Chinoy, DTCC Director – Software Engineering, is still excited to come to work each day. One of her responsibilities centers around the creation and evaluation of proof-of-concepts on distributed ledger technology (DLT), an emerging technology that is poised to transform the financial services industry. She is part of a newly-formed team that explores and evaluates DLT’s potential, engages with the Open Source community, and increases awareness, knowledge and expertise of DLT within DTCC.
DTCC Connection sat down with Chinoy to learn more about her DTCC journey and in the role she plays in driving thought leadership for DTCC and the industry.
DC: Tell us about the role your team plays in driving DTCC’s position as a thought leadership to our clients and the industry to promote discussion?
VC: Because of DTCC’s unique position in the market, we can see the critical role DLT will play in the future. It is my team’s role and responsibility to understand how to effectively use DLT to reduce risk and cost at DTCC, for the benefit of our clients. As part of this, we are heavily involved in engaging active dialogue with the Office of Fintech, and the industry around this technology. For example, we are currently leading an Open Source – Hyperledger Explorer project, and we are also driving the development of the Java Software Development Kit (SDK). To educate and encourage discussions around this technology, we’ve held hyperledger meetups in Tampa and Chennai sponsored the Blockchain Summit at Shasstra 2019 (IIT-Chennai annual technical event) where our team hosted a booth and have workshops and a hackathon. The IIT-Chennai event was a smashing success with 13 teams participating in the hackathon, 3 winning prizes.
We also completed a project that looked at DLT’s scalability and performance, proving that DLT is scalable to support the volumes of the US equity markets.
DC: How were you involved in driving the discussion on DLT?
VC: As I mentioned earlier, I have the unique opportunity of managing an Open Source project named Hyperledger Explorer, which is one of the projects of the Linux Foundation. The project is centered around the development of a web monitoring tool being led by DTCC. The Hyperledger Explorer provides a window or a visual aid into Hyperledger Fabric, a DLT platform. With it, users can see network metrics, such as how many nodes they have in their network, how many transactions there are and which chain codes (smart contracts) were deployed. I attended the Hyperledger hackfest in Montreal in October 2018, to present Hyperledger Explorer to the community.
What’s exciting and unique about the project is that it is being managed as an external project, so we have contributors from different companies in global locations who want to contribute to advancing DLT. It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to contribute to this project on behalf of DTCC.
Most recently I was involved with the testing of the newly announced Amazon Web Services (AWS) service, Managed Blockchain for Fabric.
DC:Why is DTCC your ideal workplace?
VC: I have always enjoyed keeping up with the evolving technology environment and exploring new technologies at DTCC. DLT has already shown some promise in reducing risk and costs and increasing resiliency and security. In addition to the work that is already underway to assess DLT’s application to our services and infrastructure, working on the Open Source Hyperledger project is one way we are driving the DLT discussion, especially around the Fabric platform. I’m grateful for the expertise and exposure I gained while at DTCC. It is truly exciting to be working on something so new and transformative.
Apart from the DLT aspect, DTCC’s culture of teamwork and collaboration cannot be overstated. The team keeps me engaged and challenged to do my best work each day.
Work is very important to me, but family comes first. Working at DTCC, I’m able to make time for my children who are in high school, because the organization encourages work-life balance. I’m able to make time for family vacations, while advancing my career and expanding my DLT knowledge.
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