Students in Malta Win the 2023 Global FinCap Challenge

Students from JA Vietnam and JA New York also recognized for their pitches to promote sustainable tourism for financial capability.

The pitch video for the Malteasy app, Malta’s submission to the 2023 Global FinCap Challenge.

June 1, 2023

Imagine a business idea or innovation that promotes beneficial and sustainable tourism. How might your solution strengthen both the financial and environmental health and resilience of your community?

Watch Team Malta on JA Live via our Instagram channel.

A team of students in Malta earned first place for their brilliant idea for Malteasy. Malteasy is an app that informs tourists about events, markets, and experiences while also connecting and promoting local producers and service providers with other Malteasy users. For the Global FinCap Challenge event, the student team behind Malteasy added a new feature for tourists: a budgeting tool that creates daily itineraries based on their resources. The team joined us on our Instagram channels for a JA Live interview.

The Wolves of Hai Bà Trưng, a student team in Vietnam, earned second place for their creative farmstay model focused on sustainable cocoa and coffee farming.

A student team in New York earned third place for their app, CoinTour, that promotes local eco-friendly businesses and incentivizes travelers.

Fifteen teams competed in this year’s Global FinCap Challenge. The Global FinCap Challenge is the capstone event of the JA Building a Financially Capable Generation initiative. The learning experience for youth 12-16 also includes hands-on workshops, an educational app called FinQuest, and local Innovation Challenge events, hosted by each of the fifteen participating JA locations. The winners of each National Innovation Challenge advanced to the Global FinCap Challenge.

Finalists were asked to build on their campaigns and create short pitch videos about their solutions. Teams were challenged to consider questions including:

How does financial capability support the sustainability of your original business ideas and innovations?
How can your community support the financial capability of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises?
How will this economic growth strengthen the financial capability of people in the community?

Volunteers from HSBC served as coaches for each student group, and served as judges during the virtual event. Each team created a three-minute pitch video and participated in a live Q&A with judges. Teams were judged based on how their strategies supported the goals and objectives of the Global FinCap Challenge; their creative and original presentation of ideas and solutions; and their engagement of young people in developing their pitches.

The winners of the Global FinCap Challenge earned a laptop, headphones, and a subscription to an online learning platform. The first runner up earned a laptop and subscription, while the second runner up earned a subscription.

Congratulations to all of the teams for your hard work, creativity, and enthusiasm!