SDxCentral became well-known for its coverage of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). Our coverage then extended to other SDN technologies such as hyperconverged data centers, software-defined storage, containers, 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), and multi-access edge computing (MEC).

But there are some technologies that we cover that are related to software and networking, but that don’t quite fit neatly into any particular bucket. Those would include artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, quantum computing, and blockchain.

Apparently, the Linux Foundation noticed the same thing, and decided to lump a bunch of these technologies into one event with a focus on financial services. Yesterday, the Linux Foundation announced the launch of the Open FinTech Forum: AI, Blockchain, Kubernetes & Quantum on Wall Street (OFTF). The event will take place October 10-11 in New York City.

OFTF hopes to draw CIOs and senior technologists from financial services firms and bring them together with open source community maintainers and strategists to talk about building internal open source programs.

"We've created this event in part because we're seeing strong interest from the financial services industry in contributing to projects like Hyperledger, Cloud Foundry Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, OpenMAMA, and others," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, in a statement.

Personally, I have to hand it to the Linux Foundation for this idea. The topic of blockchain, alone, should drive participation in OFTF.

CoinDesk hosts the Consensus event in New York City, and it’s been a huge success. It’s hosting its fourth annual blockchain technology summit, May 14-16. It will feature about 250 speakers. And it estimates more than 4,000 people will attend.

The Linux Foundation is smart to get in on some of this action. And its own Hyperledger Project is a respected player in the blockchain world. It’s also strategic to bundle blockchain with other technologies such as containers, AI, and quantum computing, targeting Wall Street and CIOs. Kudos to the Linux Foundation.

My only criticism would be the name “FinTech.” At first, I thought it had something to do with Finland. It took me a beat to connect it with “financial.”