(Yicai Global) Sept. 3 -- Shanghai will hold the first Inclusion Fintech Conference, which describes itself as theworld's top financial technology event,later this month.

Hosted by Chinese fintech giant Ant Group and its affiliate Alipay, the conference will be held at the World Expo Park near the Bund from Sept. 24 to 26, the organizers said yesterday.

Commenting on the host city, Ant Chief Executive Hu Xiaoming said Shanghai is China’s financial center and the Bund is the East’s Wall Street. “The financial center of the future must also be a technology center,” he added, suggesting that Shanghai is most likely to become a global financial hub in the era of the digital economy.

Under the theme of Envision Tomorrow, the Inclusion Fintech Conference’s main forum, 40 sub-forums and a number of othereventswill consider “the profound impact of fintech on the future global economy, daily life, and society under the concept of inclusion,” according to its website.

The conference will cover the five topics of digital inclusive opening, fintech innovation, global ecological co-construction, business value transformation and green and sustainable development, and strive to become a platform for the future release of new fintech, products, and results.

More than 500 influential professionals from around the world will participate in the conference online.

Global celebrities planning to attend include Achim Steiner, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations and administrator of the United Nations Development Program; William Russell, Lord Mayor of the City of London; Nobel Prize winner Michael Spencer; well-known scholar Kevin Kelly, who is also the author of Out of Control and the founding executive editor of Wired magazine; Wang Jian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; and Zhu Min, dean of the National Institute of Financial Research of Tsinghua University.

In addition to the forums, the conference will also host events on system security, artificial intelligence algorithms, and data security. Engineers in related technical fields can be invited or sign up for a competition, and the winning team will receive CNY1 million (USD146,335) in prize money.

The conference has a 13,000-square-meter exhibition hall to showcase the application of technology in the fields of finance, commerce, and digital life. Members of the public who are unable to come to the site can also visit online for free.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Peter Thomas