“Fintropolis” prepares middle schoolers for financial literacy

Future. Four interns from the Big Sean-backed “Moguls in the Making” pitch competition have built a Minecraft city called “Fintropolis” to teach middle schoolers personal finance. Fintropolis is already proving successful, which may further solidify that gaming may be the best way to teach real-world skills… no matter how old you are.

Build a Bank Workshop
Big Sean’s Sean Anderson Foundation, Ally Financial, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund set up a pitch-competition called “Moguls in the Making” to place students from HBCUs into internships at Ally and receive scholarship money.

Four out of the chosen fifteen may have just revolutionized how to teach middle schoolers about financial literacy.

• During their internship, Erin Martin, Earl Perry, Keishon Smith, and DeMari Tyner created a world within Minecraft called “Fintropolis.”
• Downloadable as an add-on to the game, Fintropolis is a virtual world that allows players to do things such as:
  • Meet the Mayor at City Hall and learn about taxes
  • Open an account at the bank and do responsible budgeting
  • Get a mortgage and buy a house
  • Invest at the stock exchange
  • Learn about identity theft at the police station

Mini moguls
Released just last month, Fintropolis has already been downloaded more than 672,000 times. Versions for both individuals and classrooms are available in case teachers want to give their students a head start in economics — a welcome change when only 21 states require high school students to take a personal finance course in order to graduate.

Eight of the interns from the Moguls in the Making program — including the creators of Fintropolis — have already scored full time jobs with Ally, and Big Sean has nothing but praise for them: “I don’t know if they know what a great accomplishment this is. This is revolutionary. Genius level, for real.”