{"id":111507,"date":"2026-10-20T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=111507"},"modified":"2026-10-20T15:06:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T15:06:28","slug":"winning-time-how-one-uri-students-platform-is-leading-the-way-and-winning-in-the-fintech-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2026\/10\/winning-time-how-one-uri-students-platform-is-leading-the-way-and-winning-in-the-fintech-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Winning Time: How one URI student\u2019s platform is leading the way and winning in the FinTech space"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 20, 2026 \u2013 University of Rhode Island MBA student Chelsie Santos\u2019 accolades keep growing; which makes listing them all futile. However, among them are receiving an innovation grant from the innovation arm of the European Union, winning first place at URI\u2019s Rise-Up Ideation pitch night<\/a>, and presenting at FinTech Women U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These achievements all came within the last year\u2014thanks to an AI platform she developed with help from Emma Choukroun, a URI exchange student from France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI haven’t spent anything out of pocket for my company. I have just been winning pitches,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her platform is called FinSight Intelligence<\/a> and it\u2019s an AI-powered financial analytics platform that uses real-time financial data, giving its users more accessibility and allowing them to make up-to-the-minute financial analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos, said Choukroun, played an instrumental role in developing the platform and launching the startup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos mentioned that Choukroun was instrumental in shaping how they communicated FinSight\u2019s value to users and their university partners. Santos went on to say that Choukroun approached the company as a business rather than simply a project and has taken a leading role in outreach to the European market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe complement each other. I focused heavily on the technology and development side, while Emma brought in a perspective focused on strategy, communication, outreach and relationship building,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was their combined vision that helped transform FinSight from an idea to where it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a commuter student who also worked full-time, Santos had limited time on campus compared to her peers, hampering her ability to access labs. It was this problem that inspired the New London Connecticut native to develop FinSight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos\u2019 limited time on campus combined with the challenges she faced in accessing the Bruce C. Sherman Trading Room\u2019s Bloomberg Terminals, which she needed for her analysis work, spurred her to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sherman Trading Room is typically crammed with students competing to access one of its 15 Bloomberg Terminals. It was this traffic jam that inspired Santos to solve the availability problem with a solution\u2014develop her own app, FinSight, using the programming language Python. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was almost impossible for me to access a terminal during my time on campus,\u201d said Santos. \u201cSo, I had to figure out a work around, which would allow me to access the financial data I need to finish my work. My first Python experience was in my first class with Professor Yuksel, who taught intro to financial data analytics, and having that knowledge as a foundation, I was able to figure out that I could utilize the program more broadly to help me get the information I needed without having to utilize the terminal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The introduction to Python was invaluable, but she needed more expertise to develop her complex platform. That\u2019s when she teamed up with Choukroun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI needed to go further and learn more of Python\u2019s capabilities to develop this app. So, that\u2019s when I started working with Emma as my tutor. She challenged me beyond my scope of ability, and I taught myself from there,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Santos was developing FinSight, she learned the importance of building redundancy into the platform. Her AI bots draw from multiple sources. This ability to draw from different sources of securities ensures if one index goes down, it won\u2019t affect any of the work being done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI used about 15 different sources of data to put into the platform. So FinSight will always spit out data, no matter if one source is shut down. The reason I did that is because I always wanted to have a backup so if anything crashes, my consumers will always have that data,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since launching FinSight Intelligence, Santos\u2019 platform has been met with a great deal of fanfare. She\u2019s 6 for 6 as far as awards and pitch competitions go, with other competitions coming up in the future. She also plans to go back to Paris next summer for VivaTech in Paris which is the largest annual technology conference and startup event in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Santos is most proud of the response she has received from undergraduate students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did a pilot program in Professor Yuksel’s class last semester, and out of the 15 students that used the platform, 10 of them said that they would use it again for their daily financial needs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not just students. Santos says her mentors, like Professor Yuksel, have gravitated toward using the platform in their class. This is because of an important feature that Santos deliberately built into the AI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Santos\u2019 platform the AI forces students to think, like their professors, by asking them follow up questions to their prompts instead of just responding with an answer. Using this approach allows the students to think critically about what they are asking instead of just being handed an answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe students said it was the first time they’ve actually understood finances without having to look up certain words or complex concepts,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos says the support she\u2019s gotten from mentors like Professor Yuksel has been crucial to her success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProfessor Yuskel and others have worked with me side-by-side the whole time and have been preaching about this app. They\u2019ve also pushed me further, mentioning other things I should incorporate,\u201d said Santos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout her entrepreneurial journey Santos has kept accessibility at the forefront. Because of this, Santos\u2019 platform is not only available online, but also through the Apple store on iPhones. More importantly to Santos, her platform is free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started FinSight because I wanted to make a program that was affordable for the people who couldn’t afford a Bloomberg Terminal, because I know how it is trying to do your finances and realizing that Bloomberg and all those expensive programs don’t really care about the 99% that can’t afford them,\u201d said Santos. \u201cFinancial technology for Wall Street shouldn’t require a Wall Street salary to access it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 20, 2026 \u2013 University of Rhode Island MBA student Chelsie Santos\u2019 accolades keep growing; which makes listing them all futile. However, among them are receiving an innovation grant from the innovation arm of the European Union, winning first place at URI\u2019s Rise-Up Ideation pitch night, and presenting at FinTech Women U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":111508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1907,88,1905],"class_list":["post-111507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-academic-excellence","tag-college-of-business","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111511,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111507\/revisions\/111511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}