Four of Ally’s interns set a challenge to devise a fun and educational way to teach about money and finance. Fintropolis, a Minecraft world that teaches you financial concepts, is born two years later.
The cost of education in the United States has been steadily climbing. Less than one-fourth of adults aged 18 to 54 years old can answer basic questions about personal finances, creating a need for new financial education priorities. Four Ally classmates focused on this, and after two years, the project was given the name Fintropolis.
Fintropolis has Detroit roots
Fintropolis was created by Martin, Perry, Smith, and Tyner in collaboration with Ally’s idea development lab, TM Studio, and video game developer Blockworks. As they explore the Fintropolis environment, players learn about earning money, paying taxes, budgeting, creating credit, managing debt, and investing.
They are also introduced to various occupations and how early financial decisions may influence their destiny. Minecraft: Education Edition also includes lesson materials to help students relate the money ideas in Fintropolis to the school curriculum.
Fintropolis’ four intern creators originally met in Detroit as participants in the 2019 Moguls in the Making, a business pitch competition presented by Ally, Big Sean’s The Sean Anderson Foundation, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
“They came up with a boss solution,” Big Sean said. “Fintropolis is just one example of what HBCU students can do when given the resources and platform to support their dreams.”
Fintropolis is one of the best solutions to the problem of financial education. Even though it is a Minecraft map, it doesn’t mean that adults can’t enjoy the map and learn about finance.
The great relevance of the map created by Ally’s interns is that, not only current generations will benefit from it, the greatest beneficiaries will be future generations since they will have family members and teachers who, thanks to Fintropolis, will be able to transfer all the knowledge obtained in the map to the youth of the future.
For all those Minecraft users or schools that have Minecraft: Education Edition, they can use Fintropolis completely free of charge. For more information about the map, click here.
