Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, 'Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it.'
Yet, 40% of Americans are just one missed paycheck away from poverty. Let’s help our children to make sound financial decisions and take control of their future prosperity.
Join us at our Financial Literacy Future Salon on Tuesday 6th of July 6 pm PST to discuss what we can do to develop a healthy relationship with money.
We will start off by introducing you to two ventures that are tackling the problem.
Luke Hohmann’s latest startup FirstRoot is empowering young people to take control of their finances by introducing participatory budgeting in their schools: Participatory Budgeting is a democratic process in which a group of students determines how to invest a shared budget to improve their school. The secret of FirstRoot success is that they give students real money to invest in their schools and support them as they work together to decide how to invest it.
FirstRoot’s model is very powerful: Participatory Budgeting authentically motivates students to learn and practice the “Four Cs” of the 21st Century curriculum: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration — all while teaching design thinking, civics, and jump-starting their journey to increasing financial literacy. Students experience true agency and stewardship over their futures, learning through their own experiences how money really works.
I love the combination of strengthening democracy as well as financial literacy. Can’t wait to hear Luke share FirstRoot’s results and surprises from their first pilot schools.
If you like FirstRoot’s mission, and you think it is a viable business, you can be part of their success by investing in their crowdfunding campaign. Deadline July 20th.
My friend Michael Gusek pointed to an interesting aspect in a LinkedIn post about why he is investing in FirstRoot:
“... Finally (as a Big Data/ML/AI/Product guy), with a data set like the one FirstRoot could generate at scale, the types of trend predictions that could be created would be perfect for a variety of positive outcomes. Kids' voices would be heard, and matter...using market forces.”
Can’t wait to discuss.
Bankaroo is an educational virtual bank for kids that helps kids learn about money, budgeting, setting goals, saving up, and being accountable for their decisions. It offers a family-friendly interface and is accessible via the web and mobile apps.
What I really love about Bankaroo is, that it was developed by Dani, the back then 11-year-old son of my former colleague and friend Etay Gafni. Can’t wait to hear about how Etay and Dani developed their app and reached 120K Bankeroo members all over the world.
These introductions will roughly take 30 minutes. This will be followed by a lively conversation about Financial Literacy and what can be done to improve it. Topics to tackle when and how to introduce wealth building: real estate investment, stocks, bonds, … What about Cryptocurrency?
Hope you join the conversation on the 6th of July!