Future Shapers, The Silicon South Conference, Bournemouth, 13 October 2026

IT in
Enterprise

Building BCP’s Future Workforce: How to Attract & Inspire the Next Generation

Students build a working digital bank in ten weeks. Then the public pays with it.

  • 2years running
  • 130+students trained
  • 7banks built
  • 2cohorts
  • 10weeks
  • 25+volunteers
Sponsored by JPMorgan ChaseRun with Bournemouth UniversityPresented by Greg Stencel

From the film shot by BU Television Production students. The full film plays at the end.

→ begin   ? keys   Q code   A board

Why it exists

A university and an employer, working together on graduates who are ready from day one.

  • The university builds the foundations: the theory, the discipline, the breadth.
  • Industry adds what only experience gives: teams, live systems, shipping under pressure.
  • Together, students graduate with both. So we built a small fintech economy on campus.

What it is

Seven student teams. Seven digital banks. One shared payment network.

  • Ten weeks. JPMorgan Chase volunteers run it, BU faculty back it.
  • Requirements, agile, containers, CI/CD, tests, security, shipping.
  • Every bank: backend, authorisation, customer UI, NFC cards, live transactions.

Two cohorts, one mission

Engineers build. Leaders enable.

  • Engineering group, who build the bank

    7 teams of 3–4. They build the bank.

    • Backend, authorisation, customer UI
    • NFC payments, live transactions
    • Docker, CI/CD, tests

  • Leadership group, who lead the team

    7 teams of 3. They own the product.

    • Requirements and stand-ups
    • Observe and coach the engineers
    • Team dynamics: Tuckman's model
Each week:a lecturea workshopa joint session

How ten weeks become a bank

Form. Pipeline. Build. Ship.

  1. Weeks 1–2
    Form

    Requirements role play. Agile with LEGO.

  2. Weeks 3–4
    Pipeline

    Docker, Jenkins, Harbor, SonarQube, Anchore. Every commit builds.

  3. Weeks 5–7
    Build

    TDD, BDD, REST APIs. UI and UX. Career journeys.

  4. Weeks 8–10
    Ship

    Cybersecurity. AI. Then the Expo.

The finale, 6 May 2026

Visitors paid with cards the students issued.

  • Five-minute pitches.
  • Visitors get NFC cards from a student bank.
  • They vote by tapping at other teams' terminals.
  • Every tap, live on dashboards around the room.
Expo footage: a tap at a student bank, and the payment network the room watched.

Every tap, live across the room

The room voted with its wallet.

0card taps
£0.00spent across seven banks
100%authorised
live

Simulation of the expo dashboard. The money was fake. The engineering wasn't.  R restarts it.

Who makes it happen

Run by people who do this for a living.

  • 25+ JPMorgan Chase volunteers

    They run it.

    Engineers, architects and leaders. Sessions and mentoring.

  • Bournemouth University faculty

    They back it.

    Kickoff to final expo.

  • BU Television Production students

    They filmed it.

    Ten weeks, one film.

House rule from the LEGO session: don't touch your bricks during time-out.

What students leave with

A product that ran in public, and the team that shipped it.

  • Debugging a distributed system while strangers wait at the till.
  • Standups, integration problems, scope cuts. Shipping anyway.
  • A story that carries a first interview.
  • For some, the first real step into a career.

We practise what we teach

The platform behind the programme runs the way we teach: small, shipped, in production.

  • Leaderboards, team dashboards, live quizzes, lab submissions, session content.
  • Built in a handful of sessions. Runs for about £2 a month.
  • This deck is one HTML file. It follows me, slide by slide, in your pocket.

Future Shapers

Dorset has the university and the industry. This is what happens when they build together.

  • The format works. Ten weeks, real teams, a working product. Any company with engineers could run a track like it, and I'm happy to share how it's built.
  • An extended programme. Imagine several companies, each bringing its own practice, tooling and culture. Students would see the range a career actually has.
  • Let's explore it. If your company would want in, tell me what you could bring. I'll take the idea to the university.

A personal proposal, not a commitment on behalf of JPMorgan Chase or Bournemouth University.

Space pause   M sound   → continue

Scan it

Ask me anything.

0 phones connected

    Nothing yet. Scan and be the first.

    Greg Stencel

    • Inventor, holder of two patents
    • Author of Kubernetes Recipes
    • Currently bringing AI to infrastructure

    Thank you

    Vote on ideas, read draft answers

    Connect on LinkedIn

    QR code for Greg Stencel on LinkedIn

    Grzegorz Stencel

    offline1 / 14
    Not live yet. Browse freely.
    IT in Enterprise

    Future Shapers, The Silicon South Conference, 13 October 2026

    IT in Enterprise

    Building BCP’s Future Workforce: How to Attract & Inspire the Next Generation

    Students build a working digital bank in ten weeks. Then the public pays with it.

    Sponsored by JPMorgan ChaseRun with Bournemouth University
    Ask a questionSuggest an improvementDraft answers & vote

    What it is

    Seven student teams. Seven banks. One payment network.

    Bournemouth University builds the foundations: the theory, the discipline, the breadth. JPMorgan Chase volunteers add what only experience gives: teams, live systems, shipping under pressure. Together, students graduate with both, and more employable for it. So instead of simulating a workplace, the programme builds a small fintech economy on campus.

    At JPMorganChase we wanted to do more than give lectures. Over ten weeks, seven teams of Bournemouth University students each build a fully working digital bank connected to one shared, simulated payment network. They work like an enterprise team: they gather requirements from stakeholders, use agile delivery, containerise their code, run CI/CD pipelines, test it, secure it and ship it. They also learn how to lead the people doing that work.

    Enterprise tooling used on the course:

    Two cohorts, one mission

    Engineers build. Leaders enable.

    Two student groups work in parallel and come together in joint workshops every week, the same way product and engineering work together in a large company.

    Each week:an hour of lecturean hour of workshopan hour together

    The ten-week journey, spring 2026

    Form. Pipeline. Build. Ship.

    Week by week, both cohorts. Tap a week to expand.

    The finale, 6 May 2026

    A live fintech economy in one room.

    Students issued physical NFC cards from their own banks to visitors. Visitors voted by spending money at student-built terminals, and every transaction showed up on dashboards around the room as it happened.

    1. Each team gives a 5-minute pitch.
    2. Visitors receive NFC cards from a student bank.
    3. Visitors tap to pay at other teams' terminals.
    4. Authorisation runs across the shared payment network.
    5. Live dashboards show the votes as they come in.
    Expo footage. Tap to pause.

    And the dashboards, simulated so you can watch it move:

    0taps
    £0.00spent
    100%authorised
    live

    Simulation of the expo dashboard. The money was fake. The engineering wasn't.

    Who makes it happen

    Run by people who do this for a living.

    What students leave with

    A product that ran in public, and the team that shipped it.

    What impressed me most wasn't just the technology. It was watching students evolve into real engineering teams: debugging distributed systems, collaborating under pressure, solving integration problems, and shipping working products. When students are trusted with ambitious real-world problems, they rise to the challenge.

    Greg Stencel, after the expo

    We practise what we teach

    Small, shipped, in production.

    The platform behind the programme (leaderboards, team dashboards, live quizzes, lab submissions, session content) was built in a handful of sessions and runs for about £2 a month.

    This page is one HTML file. The slides on the screen and the page in your hand are the same document, and this one follows the talk live.

    An idea to explore

    Could more companies give students this experience?

    This edition was built by volunteers from one company with Bournemouth University. The format is proven: ten weeks, real teams, a working product in front of the public. An extended programme, with several companies each bringing their own engineering practice, tooling and leadership culture, would give students the range a real career has.

    This is a personal proposal from Greg, not a commitment on behalf of JPMorgan Chase or Bournemouth University. Whether and how the programme extends is for the university and the companies involved to decide.

    Suggest an improvementMessage Greg on LinkedIn

    Questions, ideas and comments

    Ask me anything.

    Post a question for the room, an idea for the next edition, or a comment. Everything lands on the screen in front of Greg. No contact details are stored; if you want a reply, message Greg on LinkedIn.

    Message Greg on LinkedIn

    Only your message, an optional first name and the slide it was asked on are kept. Nothing else.

    See draft answers and vote on ideas

      Nothing on the board yet. Be the first.

      Or try the instant answers for the usual questions:

      Who's presenting

      Greg Stencel

      Created the programme and runs it with the JPMorgan Chase volunteers. Inventor and holder of two patents, author of the book Kubernetes Recipes. Currently bringing AI to infrastructure.

      One HTML file. The slides on the screen and the page in your hand are the same document, kept in step by a small Cloudflare Worker. Why this isn't a PowerPoint
      Built for Future Shapers, the Silicon South Conference 2026.