Econda

Econda is an online platform that improves K-12 economic literacy while fostering gender equality in the field. The platform offers customizable, standalone economics courses at K-12 grade levels.

Research indicates that 83% of teens do not have basic economic knowledge to help them succeed after high school. This problem can lead to people making poor financial choices in their future. There are a few root causes to this problem.

First of all, while there exists resources for college students to learn economics (even so, various sources indicate that less than 40% of students take an economics class while in college), resources for elementary and middle school students to learn economics are rarely seen. 

Secondly, elementary and middle school students are limited to the basic school curriculum and are not presented the opportunity to explore other fields such as economics. 

Thirdly, parents and teachers are struggling to teach their kids about our global economy and other economic literacy principles that will help them become better decision makers and citizens. 

Furthermore, some young adults are having trouble managing their personal economics because they lack basic economic education. 

In general, K-12 resources are often limited and the majority of K-12 schools follow similar basic curriculum without offering much flexibility for youth to explore a broader variety of subjects such as economics. On average, in elementary schools, 20 students are taught by one teacher for an entire year. Traditionally, teachers (especially elementary teachers), rarely take economics courses in their own educational careers. With elementary school teachers have inadequate knowledge of economics, it becomes hard for them to teach the subject to their students. As a result, lack of economic literacy has become a seemingly endless cycle within school frameworks. Research by Walstad and Watts says that over 50% of elementary school teacher haven't taken courses in economics. As a result, standalone economics courses need to be introduced for elementary school students to learn economics.

Additionally, even when elementary/middle school teachers want to include economics, teachers often rely on social study textbooks, which too often contain incorrect or little economic content. K-8 teachers might think that students can learn economics in later grades such as high school, not all students will take a high school economics course (less than half) and those that do often don't gain enough understanding of the subject to apply it to their daily decision making. 

Leading researchers in the field, including 1981 Nobel Laureate James Tobin, William Walstad, and Mark C. Schug have all stated the need for economic literacy. 

The scope of this problem involves the 130K+ K-12 schools in the U.S. Students from any country around the world can greatly benefit from high-quality, accessible economics courses. 

Econda is an online platform that makes it easy for students to create customizable, standalone economics courses that can be implemented into any elementary, middle, or high school in the United States. Econda does not require schools to hire any additional staff for the courses. All students need is access to a laptop. Econda includes automated grading of quizzes, content presentation, and tracking of student progress. Furthermore, Econda sets the standard for an hour of econ a week for younger students. Since one of the biggest challenges teachers face is not enough time for a full economics class, Econda allows students to log on to the platform and complete 10-15 minutes of learning a day, adding up to approximately an hour a week! Econda uses technology similar to that of popular learning platforms such as Khan Academy and ST Math: Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning to adapt to various students levels, and fits in the category of software and mobile applications. 

Our solution serves K-12 students, but with a focus on elementary, middle, and high schools that don't currently offer any economics courses or opportunities to learn economics. Currently, an increasing number of parents and teachers want their students to have a basic level of understanding of economics, but school resources and opportunities are very limited. The majority of students never get the opportunity to learn economics using high-quality educational materials. Increased economic literacy among youth will not only benefit the individuals themselves, but it will have a lasting impact on policymaking and the financial health of the world population as a whole. Econda will provide an easily integrable, fun, and customizable platform for K-12 students to learn economics on a routine basis. With Econda, teachers and parents will no longer have to stress about not knowing how to explain fundamental economics concepts to their kids, and elementary and middle school students won't have to read articles above their level in an attempt to learn more about the economy they live in.

Our team consists of Melinda and Janet Liu, sisters who are both studying economics and computer science at MIT. We both found our passion for economics upon coming across the FBLA economics competitive event, and read numerous economics books as a result. While we were looking for resources to prepare for the economics event, we realized that nearly all existing resources were at the high school level or above, and we never had the opportunity to learn anything about economics prior to high school (and we were lucky enough coming across economics in high school in the first place). After talking to multiple K-12 educators and parents, we realized that many of them wanted their students to learn economics, but did not know how to teach them, and did not have the proper resources to teach basic economics topics (scarcity & choice, supply & demand, substitutes & complements, etc.) at the K-12 level. We wanted to help provide the resources and opportunities for students to learn economics starting from the elementary school level, as that's exactly what we wished we could have had (& we found strong enough interest among K-12 educators and students). Thus, we'd made it our mission to enhance economic literacy among youth. During our time in high school, we gained a lot of experience working with the K-12 age group through the economics initiatives we'd launched. To date, we are both the authors of four economics books for K-8 students (2 books published through Amazon KDP, and 2 books published with Scholastic). We're the co-founders and co-presidents of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization J&M Sunrizon Economics, through which we oversaw chapter and book donation programs, as well as various annual international competitions. We also had a lot of fun creating economics content for our Wonderland Economics YouTube channel (target audience: K-8). Additionally, we've conducted research regarding economic education and presented our research paper to professionals at research conferences. Through these initiatives, we both gained a lot of insight into the best resources and tools that would help K-12 students love learning economics and improve youth economic literacy overall. Through all of our previous experiences working on enhancing youth economic literacy, we are confident that we are the ones to bring Econda — the one platform where all K-12 economic education and learning happens — to the world.

Three years ago, we already started talking with K-12 educators, parents, and students, trying to understand their efforts to learn/teach basic economics and finance concepts. Through each of our economics initiatives: hosting international K-12 economics contests, webinars, book donation programs, and EconGirls programs through our 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization J&M Sunrizon Economics; publishing four economics books for youth; and launching the Wonderland Economics YouTube channel, we did many rounds of getting feedback of K-12 students, as well as K-12 parents and educators. Our economics initiatives over the years have led us to collecting many pages full of survey feedback from economics webinars, testimonials/reviews for our books, and successful collaborations with educators and school economics clubs. Furthermore, we did a direct research project on the impact that short-educational economics videos had on K-12 students' belief of what economics is, and we able to gain a good understanding of modern tools that could help today's youth learn economics. All of our previous experience has helped us realize that there are still constraints and gaps in economics resources that educators have. As a result, Econda is our innovative solution for making economic education much smoother and accessible for K-12 students and educators nationwide. We realized that with all these resources, a technologically based solution to integrate everything into one simple virtual classroom that doesn't rely on a teacher to administer the economics-learning resources is what would really benefit K-12 students and educators and solve their frustrations with administering scattered content & resources themselves. We will continue to work closely with K-12 students and educators nationwide to further our mission.

Econda serves a market of customers that are unserved/severely underserved by existing organizations. Currently, millions of parents and educators around the globe are individually concerned about their children's understanding of basic economics concepts and how that could affect their decision making and future financial success, but such topics are rarely covered in schools. On top of the limited economics resources that currently exist for youth, they are all extremely scattered and there does not exist one technology based solution that allows any student, whether in elementary, middle, or high school to learn economics on their own without the support of a parent or teacher to guide them through resources that are above their level of comprehension. Econda will leverage technologies including AI and machine learning to create a seamless online economics learning experience for students starting from elementary school. We expect Econda to transform to scene for teaching and enhancing economic literacy across K-12 schools nationwide. With Econda, all students need is access to a laptop. The success of a student's learning of economics will no longer have to rely on the teacher's own knowledge of economics or even how well the teacher can simplify topics of economics to explain it to their audience of elementary, middle, or high school students. Using Econda's technology, students can immerse themselves into the topics of scarcity & choice, supply & demand, etc., and apply it to their daily decision making, even at an elementary school level. In the near future, Econda will feature fun & engaging learning modules, short quizzes, and community-building activities and virtual badges/rewards that they could receive to track their economics learning progress. Econda is the platform that will revolutionize economic and financial literacy education for youth. 

*Note: The Econda platform is still under the development process. The link included for the question above is for J&M Sunrizon Economics, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by the same founders of Econda, and one of Econda's biggest partners. While J&M Sunrizon Economics operates on a mission comparable to that of Econda, Sunrizon Economics does not feature the same technological features that will be a major part of the Econda platform.

Econda's impact goals for the next year:

1. Help 15 schools that are currently struggling to set up any type of economics classroom or economics-learning opportunities for their students. To achieve this goal, we will reach out to schools that are currently understaffed and/or don't have enough resources to properly serve the students in that school community. Econda will work with these schools to ensure that the students can have access to high-quality economic education without requiring the school to dedicate teacher resources towards teaching an economics class themselves. 
2. Build a community of 30+ homeschool parents, and have them be the first homeschool users of the Econda platform. We are determined to serve homeschool parents who are looking for ways to help their students learn economics. We already have a spreadsheet of contacts for parents who have reached out to us through previous economics initiatives regarding how they could utilize our resources to help their elementary, middle, or high school students who want to learn economics.  
3. In the next year, Econda will roll out the first version of the Econda platform for all users — we hope to collect feedback from all initial users: teachers using Econda in an afterschool program; Econda serving as a full-time econ class in elementary, middle, and high schools; homeschoolers learning economics and financial literacy through Econda; school economics clubs using Econda to enhance economic literacy among club members.

In general, we look forward to building close relationships with educators, parents, school, and school board across the nation to best serve the needs in offering high-quality economics and financial literacy learning opportunities to K-12 students.

Econda is an online platform that relies on software while featuring Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to adapt to individual students' learning goals and progress while on the platform. Furthermore, Econda will offer an initial questionnaire, through which Econda can customize a student's learning experience and content while on the platform. Econda will continuously adapt to a student's learning progress and goals to ensure that they are making the most out of their Econda experience. Econda automates the learning process, including quizzes and customized feedback on learning milestones. As a result, no teachers are needed to grade any part of the activities, and Econda is a fully stand-alone economics learning experience for any K-12 student. With Econda, educators and parents will no longer have to worry about how they themselves can find the proper resources and time to teach economics concepts to their students.

Although we have not yet launched the Econda platform, we have consistently served 100K+ audience members through our economics YouTube channel, 1K+ students through our economics books, and 1K+ active students through our nonprofit organization. These initiatives and metrics have allowed us to collect valuable feedback and learn more about the true needs of potential future Econda customers. Given our impact goals for the next year of impacting 15 schools currently without economics classes, and 30+ homeschool parents, we expect to serve between 500 - 1,000 students over the next year. 

Existing school frameworks can be difficult to modify; however, as more educators and school board members are starting to realize the importance of youth economic literacy, we hope to start building credibility by introducing the technology to new school programs/departments.

Financially, we would need enough initial funding to get the product delivered to a few schools. We foresee that the financial challenges will become easier to deal with once we create partnerships with initial schools. 

Cultural challenges might come into play when we want to offer the product to countries other than the U.S., as economic content might require modifications. However, we plan on focusing on the U.S. market before expanding to other countries. 

Econda partners with the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization J&M Sunrizon Economics and the Wonderland Economics YouTube channel, to leverage the economics content and resources that were created by the same founders. Furthermore, these partnerships will already provide Econda with a community of 2K+ individuals and/or organizations who are interested in economics resources for K-12 students. Additionally, these partnerships will provide Econda with a group of university professors/researchers as well as K-12 educators, parents, and students who are extremely supportive of Econda's mission to enhance economic literacy among youth worldwide. 

To our key customers, K-12 students, we provide them with a variety of age-suited economics content presented in various manners to best suit their needs, whether it be through books, videos, practice multiple choice questions, or even economics competitions.

The content will be presented through our online Econda platform, which would be accessible via two main avenues: 1) school subscription (teachers can customize what content they want all their students to see), or 2) individual use (our AI model will create customized content recommendations based on an initial quiz the student takes). Our initial content would be provided by the Wonderland Economics YouTube Channel and the Sunrizon Economics 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, both of which were launched in previous years by Econda’s co-founders. Additionally, book content would come from “Economics for Tweens” and “Elementary Economics,” two K-12 economics books also authored by Econda’s co-founders. We will grow our content database as we expand by hiring content creation interns.

K-12 students need the Econda platform to provide them with an accessible economics learning platform to bridge the current gap in youth economics education. With Econda’s school subscription plan, teachers can easily integrate our platform into students’ education without the worries of having to develop their own curriculum suitable for the age group; with our individual subscription plan, students can receive tailored content recommendations to provide the most value out of their time.

Econda has three major revenue streams. First, as an early-stage startup, we plan on raising investment capital, which will help us get off the ground in terms of product development (including coding the actual platform itself and creating additional content) and marketing to expand our reach / audience. 

Second, as for more long-term, sustained funding, we will have our school subscription model, where schools would pay either a monthly or yearly subscription plan fee to provide a set number of students with access to the platform while allowing educators to monitor / control the content. We plan to initially start with schools in the United States, with goals to expand internationally within the next few years as we expand the languages in which our content is offered.

Third, we will have more miscellaneous, but still continuous, revenue streams, including potential supplemental book sales, future merchandise sales through our platform, and YouTube Ad revenue.