The innovation tackles the greatest problem that the world currently faces. Amidst peace and conflict, we often overlook the drastic influence basic financial literacy can have on the quality of life. During my Community Project, wherein we were teaching kids under 13 basic financial skills, I came to a harrowing realisation that the real problem isn't always just knowing; it's applying. For many of these kids, as they grow older, the likelihood of these concepts being retained by them is highly unlikely, since they never practised financial management on their own. Hence, I shifted my focus towards helping these children apply these concepts. What followed was about 6 months of platform development and AI training using databases in multiple languages, and then, I had a product ready.
This project isn't just about learning, it's also about applying. Many kids in my country, around 90,000,000 to be precise, are living below the poverty line, and as it stands, financial education is one of the most overlooked aspects in modern society. We often underestimate the difficulty of working with money, since for most of our lives, we've been fairly well-off, and managing money is second nature to us. However, for many, the reality is the exact opposite of this.
This project is tackling financial education at a large scale by helping students apply ideas effectively. The inspiration behind this project isn't its supposed appeal, but rather its dire necessity in the world.
The way it works is actually quite simple. As it stands, most of our users are between 16 and 20, so they do have a basic understanding of how money works. The platform itself provides resources for them to learn concepts like loans and interest, and the major appeal of the platform is the Finance Twin, which is basically a clone of that person, with the same financial standing.
Some questions may come to mind as the idea seems a little too good to be true. Firstly, how are these people using the platform? Well, we conducted a survey and identified that almost 9/10 people in slums and rural villages have access to the internet and a smartphone, which eradicated the first challenge. Secondly, how do we get them to use the app and learn? Well, the app runs ads, which in turn make money, and all that money is directly paid to the users, in a way, motivating them using a reward system.
Going back to the Finance Twin here. The profile of these people is set up using a list of things about themselves that they must share with the app. Then, the app curates a profile for them, which comes with the Finance Twin, that has a clear understanding of the financial standing of the individual, and can help them simulate the various outcomes of how they manage their finances.
At its crux, the idea is really simple. The users gain rewards for learning and can apply them in an entertaining way in order to better understand financial independence as a whole.
It's actually spread extremely well. Using some of my contacts in Singapore and Indonesia, we've helped set up the application on the users' devices there as well. Currently, we have about 600 users who're consistently using the app, with an average of 4hrs and 27m spent on the app by a user since their account was made. The product has been fairly well-received, and besides some bugs and glitches due to the lack of proper servers as of now, the product is working fairly well.
The app's integrated features are very intuitive to understand, and the app is currently available in English, Hindi, Indonesian, and Tagalog as well. As for the impact, users have reported an increase in their savings since downloading the app, and feel more secure about their finances as well. All of this leads me to believe that the product is performing fairly well, and meeting it's intended purpose really well as well.
There haven't been many large-scale modifications as building the project took really long, and hence, I'd ensured that most features were readily available to the users. The major thing that I've expanded on is the language aspect, since initially, the app only provided direct English and Hindi translation, but after realising that many users couldn't read, I decided to add a voice feature that would speak the sentence out loud for the users to get a better understanding. I also tried to shift mainly towards graphics, as they're usually easier to comprehend for many people.
The languages itself increased, as translations to Indonesian and Tagalog were included, with the same voiceover feature. The AI is also improving as it's getting trained with more data provided by the users, and is becoming more reliable and increasingly better at providing tips and ways for the user to responsibly manage their finances as a whole.
Overall, I'd say that the modifications have been tame, but accessibility as a whole has increased a lot since the upload of the app for the users.
Since the app is an APK File, we tend to physically attend to the users and download the app on their phone ourselves to ensure safety. The app doesn't ask for any sensitive financial information; however, things like income, household income, net value of all assets, and such information are shared with the app, and for the safety of the user, cannot be leaked at all.
Sending a file over would be possible, but the initial set-up requires me, or one of the people working with us, to be there with you physically as well. While pictures and videos can be shared, the app access itself requires our presence.
