News

from TUM-International

Kutaisi International University launches a new Master’s degree Program in Finance and Information Management

Kutai­si Inter­na­tio­nal Uni­ver­si­ty is one of the fas­test gro­wing, high ran­king and sought-after sta­te uni­ver­si­ties in Geor­gia today.  The KIU wel­co­med its first cohort of stu­dents in the fall of 2020 and held on to its top ran­king in a short time (accor­ding to the avera­ge com­pe­ti­ti­on score for the 2021 Uni­fied Natio­nal Exami­na­ti­ons). The­re have been impres­si­ve accounts of KIU’s suc­cess repor­ted by the Euro­pean part­ners.  As of 2021, KIU was reco­gni­zed as the fas­test gro­wing and pro­gres­si­ve edu­ca­tio­nal hub in the regi­on by the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich (TUM).

This year KIU brings for­ward yet ano­ther pro­gram and announ­ces the admis­si­on of stu­dents to the new master’s pro­gram in “Finan­ce and Infor­ma­ti­on Manage­ment — FIM”.  The first FIM pro­gram was estab­lished at TUM in 2004 and has been ran­ked top by the nati­on­wi­de CHE Mas­ter-Ran­king of 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2020 of the news­pa­pers “Die Zeit” and “Han­dels­blatt”.

The FIM pro­gram lead at KIU is Pro­fes­sor Rudi Zagst who holds the Chair of Mathe­ma­ti­cal Finan­ce at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich (TUМ) and is the co-foun­der of the FIM pro­gram at TUM. Co-lead of the pro­gram is the Head of the Kutai­si Inter­na­tio­nal Uni­ver­si­ty School of Manage­ment and Bachelor’s Degree pro­gram in Manage­ment, Doc­tor of Eco­no­mic Sci­en­ces, Pro­fes­sor Natia Zedgi­nid­ze-Jish­ka­ria­ni.

The goal of the two-year (120-cre­dit) pro­gram is to train com­pe­ti­ti­ve spe­cia­lists in the field of finan­ce and infor­ma­ti­on manage­ment and to enhan­ce the exper­ti­se of prac­ti­cing mana­gers, allo­wing them to inde­pendent­ly app­ly finan­ce and infor­ma­ti­on manage­ment in various sec­tors.

The con­cen­tra­ti­ons that the FIM pro­gram includes are dif­fe­rent and spe­ci­fic:

  • Quan­ti­ta­ti­ve Finan­ce – (QF)
  • Finan­cial Manage­ment (FM)
  • Busi­ness and Infor­ma­ti­on Sys­tems Engi­nee­ring — (BISE)

Inter­na­tio­nal aca­de­mic per­son­nel will be invol­ved in the pro­gram from the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and other hig­her edu­ca­ti­on insti­tu­ti­ons.

The FIM pro­gram is rich in trai­ning cour­ses such as Busi­ness Pro­cess Manage­ment & Digi­tal Inno­va­ti­on, Data Ana­ly­tics and Finan­cial Eco­no­me­trics, Machi­ne Lear­ning, Digi­tal Dis­rup­ti­on, Inno­va­ti­on and Trans­for­ma­ti­on, Block­chain Based Sys­tems Engi­nee­ring, Quan­ti­ta­ti­ve Finan­ce, Appli­ed Risk Manage­ment, etc.  The pro­gram will be imple­men­ted in Eng­lish.

What care­er oppor­tu­ni­ties does the FIM pro­gram offer?

The­re is a diver­se list of are­as whe­re the FIM pro­gram gra­dua­tes can find employ­ment or con­ti­nue their pro­fes­sio­nal care­er cove­ring all sec­tors whe­re finan­cial manage­ment tech­no­lo­gy models are nee­ded. Tho­se sec­tors will be most in demand and high-pay­ing by 2030 such as the finan­cial sec­tor; start-ups, espe­ci­al­ly the so-cal­led Fin­Tech sec­tor (Fin­Tech) and insu­rance-tech (Insurе-Tech) com­pa­nies; insu­rance com­pa­nies; invest­ment com­pa­nies; con­sul­ting orga­niza­ti­ons that spe­cia­li­ze in con­sul­ting digi­tal finan­cial ser­vices, con­cep­tu­al soft­ware design and deve­lo­p­ment; health­ca­re and phar­maceu­ti­cals;  com­pu­ter and data sci­ence sec­tor; Mul­ti­na­tio­nal com­pa­nies in dis­tri­bu­ti­on and production/manufacturing sec­tors.   

What is the pro­gram fee and is the­re an oppor­tu­ni­ty for stu­dents to obtain fun­ding?

The annu­al pro­gram fee is GEL 12,250 for Geor­gi­an citi­zens, and 7,000 euros for for­eign citi­zens.  The fee covers local trans­por­ta­ti­on (Tbi­li­si-Kutai­si-Tbi­li­si), KIU Inter­nal Uni­ver­si­ty shut­tles, wel­co­me kit with a lap­top (if neces­sa­ry, a KIU lap­top can be pro­vi­ded free of char­ge for the pro­gram dura­ti­on) , email, Office365,  cor­po­ra­te kit, access to KIU LMS, online libra­ry, etc.

The KIU offers tui­ti­on fun­ding to the best can­di­da­tes. Fun­ding shall be obtai­ned after the appli­ca­ti­on pro­ce­du­re and sub­mis­si­on of rele­vant docu­ments. Fun­ding will be pro­vi­ded through the bud­get allo­ca­ted within the rele­vant cate­go­ry. It is a com­pe­ti­ti­ve pro­cess and scores obtai­ned at the Master’s exam will be taken into con­side­ra­ti­on. For more detail­ed infor­ma­ti­on on pro­grams and grant oppor­tu­ni­ties plea­se visit here.