Country of Residence
United States
Age
17
Project title
Wealth Bridge Global
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Wealth Bridge helps young people turn financial knowledge into informed real-world decisions through student-led education and hands-on behavioral Decision Labs curriculum.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
Personal Linkedin
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Growth (We’ve moved past the very first activities and are beginning to have consistent weekly or monthly impact)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
My very cleaver aunt gave me $500 for my birthday and whispered in my ear, "Put it somewhere it can grow." I scoured the internet and it led me down several rabbit holes about investing and stocks, I was fascinated. A few years later, another birthday changed how I saw that experience. My friend asked me what I was going to buy; I told her I was going to invest my money. She had no idea what I meant. That conversation stayed with me because I realized at that moment not everyone was learning the same things about money. I started to wonder what I could do about it. I decided I wanted to teach financial literacy. While searching the internet I found Junior Achievement, an organization that focused on financial literacy and that discovery led me down a path that would create partnerships with Boys and Girls Club, my school and what became known as Wealth Bridge Global.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
My original theory was simple: if you teach teens about money and how it works, they will make better choices. I originally taught financial literacy based on that assumption. I taught financial concepts and the students understood them, but I still heard stories about choices they were making that were not in their own interest. At the same time, I started noticing payment systems that were not neutral. Tap-to-pay, Buy Now Pay Later and cashless transactions were reducing friction and made spending effortless. For most teens, our 65 year old retired selves feels abstract, but a BNPL payments deducted from your bank account feels real. The new gap I saw was different from financial education, it was a behavioral gap between knowing what we know and what we actually do. I came up with the concept that real world scenarios might help us to recognize our choices and behavior. By using real world simulations, students can identify when the systems are nudging you to spend your money and how choices like BNPL affect their near future. To help combat this gap I created Decision Labs for students in grades 7-12. I felt that learning about money and learning how to make better decisions affects people on more than just a financial level, it also impacts their well-being and confidence.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Wealth Bridge began without a name and with six instructors I selected through an application process. After a year long process of zoom meetings and organizing partnerships, we entered our first classroom: a kindergarten class using the Junior Achievement curriculum at the Boys and Girls Club in Burbank. From there we went on to teach kindergarten through fifth grade and our team grew to 18 instructors. Teaching exposed a behavioral gap for me and once I saw it I began to obsess over it. During the summer of 2026, I applied with two of my teammates to Harvard-Westlake's Forge Accelerator, where we could develop an original solution: Decision Labs. After working with experts and testing our decision labs on students, we received a $1300 grant from our school to help bring the curriculum to fruition. We created printed booklets with hands-on Decision Labs for students in grades 7-12: Cash vs. Card, Future Money, Psychology of Spending and The Real Price. Students are not told what choice to make, instead they are placed into realistic financial scenarios so they can recognize what is influencing them, understand the consequences of their choices and help make more informed decisions in the future. We have piloted the Labs with students, printed facilitator guides and workbooks and are in the process of establishing our first class.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Wealth Bridge has two complementary branches: our teaching branch grew from 6 to 18 student instructors, who volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club along with other community sites teaching Junior Achievement curriculum. We believe in early financial education, and so far we have reached 226 students across multiple schools, representing 997 student-hours of financial education. Our impact expands beyond the students we teach and creates student leadership roles. As we worked with students, we saw a gap in traditional financial education as money has become more digital . Research in Costa Rica and Japan contributed to our second branch, Decision Labs, which we piloted the program with 25 students, testing activities around cash versus card, Buy Now Pay Later, The Psychology of Spending and pricing tactics. Our pilot is still small, so I don't want to overstate outcomes. Initial post assessments suggest that students are recognizing influences that shape their financial choices. We are using what we learn to improve our curriculum and we are developing stronger pre/post measurements for future Decision Labs.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
When I started Wealth Bridge I wasn't looking for a gap in financial eduction, but once the teaching revealed it, I couldn't ignore it. Most financial literacy programs focus on budget, saving, credit, spending and investing. Decision Labs complement traditional financial literacy by focusing on what happens when students know what to do versus what they actually do. My generation is naviagting new challenges influencing spending with tap-to-pay, Buy Now Pay Later, subscriptions and artificial urgency to buy before it's gone on places like TikTok shops. Instead of explaining influences, we put students in real life scenarios that we know they will encounter. They use cash vs. credit to see how that feels, we explain how it affects you if you make a few BNPL decisions and talk about debt spiral. We don't tell them what to buy. Our goal is to leave them with the ability to recognize what is shaping their decisions. We are unique in that we build and deliver the curriculum. Our instructors are co-developers. Having a team of 18 instructors gives us feedback about what teens encounter and how we can explain it. Instructors at Wealth Bridge are often called up to new leadership roles. Decision Labs emerged from what we learned in the community and as money evolves we believe this is the missing layer in financial education.
How many people are on your team?
18
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
I focus on strategy; Sophia directs our Burbank site; Archer leads expansion; Isaac manages operations; Dylan leads community and recruitment; and Elle leads curriculum and teaching. We are a team of 18 and we are all instructors. When we identify strengths in our instructors, we have meetings and find a role that they can thrive in as we all have different strengths.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next year, my goal is to create a product that can work without me. We will continue to strengthen Decision Labs through pre/post assessments and make any final refinements to the student workbooks and facilitator guides. I am going to run one class with few of our instructors, then Archer will run a class in the same manner. Next I want to partner with another student-led group at another school and give them the Decision Lab workbooks and facilitator guide and provide feedback on what worked and what didn't. I feel that those insights will really give us some ways to improve the curriculum. My goal is to create a curriculum that other organizations and schools can easily adopt that will help students everywhere make more intentional financial decisions.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
Our team of six student instructors grew to a team of 18. We invited people in our school community who wanted to make a positive impact to apply, through our application process it was important to us that instructors were committed to the students they serve. Our original team was strong and as Wealth Bridge expanded, they became leaders. I asked each member, "what are your strengths and how do they want to build and serve Wealth Bridge?" This naturally aligned with who they were and where they felt comfortable contributing most. As new instructors show their commitment, we continue to give them more responsibility. Our two branches of Wealth Bridge also reinforce each other, teaching gives us feedback and feedback allows us to iterate. Our next step is expanding this circle beyond Wealth Bridge to schools by giving them the tools they need to run Decision Labs themselves.
