Smart Computing Applications in Crowdfunding

The book focuses on smart computing for crowdfunding usage, looking at the crowdfunding landscape, e.g., reward-, donation-, equity-, P2P-based and the crowdfunding ecosystem, e.g., regulator, asker, backer, investor, and operator. The increased complexity of fund raising scenario, driven by the broad economic environment as well as the need for using alternative funding sources, has sparked research in smart computing techniques. Covering a wide range of detailed topics, the authors of this book offer an outstanding overview of the current state of the art; providing deep insights into smart computing methods, tools, and their applications in crowdfunding; exploring the importance of smart analysis, prediction, and decision-making within the fintech industry. This book is intended to be an authoritative and valuable resource for professional practitioners and researchers alike, as well as finance engineering, and computer science students who are interested in crowdfunding and other emerging fintech topics.

Bo Xing, D.Ing, is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science, School of Mathematical and Computer Science, University of Limpopo, South Africa. He was a scientific researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa. He has published 3 books, over 50 research papers in the form of international journals, and international conference proceedings. His current research interests lie in applying various nature-inspired computational intelligence methodologies towards big data analysis, miniature robot design and analysis, advanced mechatronics system, and e-maintenance.

Tshilidzi Marwala, Ph.D, is the Vice Chancellor & Principal of the University of Johannesburg. He was previously the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation as well as the Dean of Engineering at the University of Johannesburg. He was a full Professor of Electrical Engineering, the Carl and Emily Fuchs Chair of Systems and Control Engineering as well as the SARChI Chair of Systems Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was also an executive assistant to the technical director at the South African Breweries. He has published 12 books (one has been translated into Chinese), over 280 papers in journals, proceedings, book chapters and magazines and holds three international patents. His research interests are multi-disciplinary, and they include the theory and application of computational intelligence to engineering, computer science, finance, social science and medicine.