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BizWorld.org CEO, Thais Rezende and Chair of the Board, Hale Boggs were honored to be able to participate in the official launch activities of BizWorld.org Mexico in Jalisco last week. A standing-room only press conference was followed by meetings with Jalisco’s Minister of Education, the Minister of Innovation and several other dignitaries, officials and corporate representatives as the country prepares to embrace BizWorld programs in their schools. The festivities were capped with a pitch session for local start-ups with BizWorld.org Mexico founders Roberto Malpica and Roberto Arechederra. Classes will be starting soon!

As a proud exhibitor, BizWorld.org invites you to join us at the 54th Annual Financial and Economic Literacy Conference, held October 7-10 in St. Petersburg, Florida. We look forward to meeting all the wonderful educators and sharing best practices and strategies for incorporating economic and financial literacy in the classroom. Come meet us, we’re in Booth 11!

On September 22nd, 2015 Carla Foster, COO of BizWorld.org, was invited by Superintendent Barbara Nemko to Napa County Office of Education (NCOE)to attend their “Mission Possible” meeting of principals and administrators. The meeting was a fun way to introduce new programs and resources available to this team of awesome educators, thus enabling them to accomplish their mission of serving Napa County’s children with the best programs possible. This was a great opportunity to build on our success in St. Helena and introduce BizWorld to more educators in this region. Thanks Superintendent Nemko and friends for such a warm and enthusiastic reception. We are looking forward to working with you!

The BizWorld program is being featured on the reality TV show, Startup U! Watch young entrepreneurs follow their dreams at they go through Draper University’s 7-week program. Tune in on ABC family on Thursdays at 5pm PST to be inspired by their innovative business pursuits! Check out what they exactly do in the trailer below:

“I love the work that you are doing at BizWorld.org. Teaching kids about entrepreneurship and financial education from an early age is critical to their well being and success.” Jason Young, CEO, MindBlown Labs Creates captivating mobile app/games that teach teens and young adults about personal finance. Age: 33 Favorite Food: Ramona’s red chile burrito Favorite Video Game: While I love Thrive ‘n’ Shine, my favorite video game of all time is Final Fantasy II Favorite Toy: Legos Favorite Teacher: Ms. Banks (Spanish) 1) When did you first know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? When I was 9, I had an opportunity to shadow an entrepreneur, a local plumber, two days/week. I worked with him over the summer and quickly came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to become a plumber when I grew up. That said, working with him ignited my passion to run my own business and be my own boss. He paid me $10 a day to work with him, and I saved my money that I earned to buy candy called “Sour Power”. The candy was very popular but not readily available in stores. You could only get it from the ice-cream truck once a day. I found one location that would sell it to me in bulk and used my savings from the summer to purchase large quantities of it. I then marked it up by about 50% and resold it for a profit at school. My school eventually shut me down. By then, however, it was too late. I was hooked on this thing called entrepreneurship. 2) Tell us about MindBlown Labs. What do you enjoy about running your own business? Mindblown labs was founded in 2012 in Oakland, CA. My company creates mobile games to teach kids to make critical life and financial decisions. Our first game is called “Thrive and Shine”. When we started the company, my co-founder and I did not have an office space for my 3 employees. We worked remotely to keep costs down. At the end of 2012, we were offered free office space by Community Bank of the Bay. In 2015, Mindblown Labs has grown to 12 people! Every day, I have the opportunity to work on something that I am passionate about. I want all kids to understand money, and how to make critical decisions that will affect them as adults. I also have a lot of flexibility in how much I choose to work. Running a business requires dedication and discipline. I work much more than a full 9-5pm day, but I choose the hours that I work. I also work with highly competent people. 3) What advice would you give kids about running your own business and the skills that you have learned? a) Running your own business takes a lot of hard work and discipline.b) It’s important to surround yourself with dedicated individuals and ask for help when you need it whether it’s from your parents, investors and/or friends.c) It’s not always the smartest person who is successful. It’s the person who has the endurance to figure things out, make mistakes, and then keep on moving forward. I have started five different businesses and each time I have learned something new from my failures.d) It’s important to respect people’s differences. Everyone on your team has different strengths and gifts.

by Sherry Rahmani, Program Outreach Coordinator Financial fitness was the hot topic of the day at the 2015 CalCPA Financial Literacy Summit, co-hosted alongside California Jump$tart Coalition. I had the pleasure of meeting educators and financial literacy advocates and introduced them to some of the resources offered by BizWorld.org for financial literacy improvement. It was an honor to contribute to such an important cause and have the opportunity to collaborate on ways to tackle the issue of financial literacy. There were great keynotes regarding the success, challenges and progress for financial literacy in public education and sessions on managing student loan debt that I found extremely informative and useful. Having volunteered as a college prep tutor for several years, I often met high school and college students who knew so little about important and complex financial issues that they were about to face. I always stressed the importance of building good financial habits and reminded them that earning a degree wouldn’t guarantee a career and/or a good income. While teaching BizWorld at one of our local schools a month ago, I watched as the students learned how to be financially responsible. VPs of finance accompanied their team members as they shopped for materials and advised them on how much to spend. I remember seeing one VP of finance who refused to approve several withdrawal requests. After reviewing their numbers, she felt that they couldn’t take the risk of having any more expenses, and she didn’t want the company to end up with a loss. It was great to see young elementary students understanding important concepts such as paying rent and salaries and making smart spending decisions. I can say with confidence that these students are already better equipped to make sound financial decisions in the future. It’s never too early to teach financial literacy and prepare kids for success. Many of us learned what we know about money management from our parents and caregivers. Nowadays, we’re turning to teachers to prepare our children for their financial future. As our wonderful educators around the nation equip tomorrow’s leaders with the knowledge to make smarter money decisions, we can support them by continuing our own financial education and building positive learning experiences for our children.

We want to give a special thank you to our friends at Franklin Templeton for hosting our summer Teacher Training at their beautiful campus in San Mateo, CA. Our experienced BizWorld.org program staff provided comprehensive, hands-on training to more than 30 educators on how to facilitate our BizWorld and BizMovie programs in their classrooms. Participating educators were also provided with a complete program and all materials necessary to implement our programs in their classrooms serving up to 33 children for each program. This results in up to 1000 students being impacted during the 2015-2016 academic year. We were joined by many new teachers excited to learn about our programs as well as several veteran BizWorld.org educators, eager to share their classroom experiences and practical tips after many years of teaching our programs. All the teachers expressed their appreciation for for the comfortable learning environment that Franklin Templeton provided. Thank you again for being such wonderful hosts!

by Thais Rezende, CEO We are proud to announce our new partnership with Umpqua Bank. Umpqua’s commitment to innovation, and serving and supporting the local community makes them a perfect partner for BizWorld.org. Thanks to their generosity and employee volunteer support, 350 young students in San Francisco’s North Bay will learn real-world skills that will inspire them to become the architects of their futures and have confidence to transform their communities! Welcome to our BizWorld.org family!

by Thais Rezende, CEO We are happy to announce U.S. Bank’s investment in BizWorld.org to support expansion and reach of our entrepreneurship education programs in the western United States. Thanks to the Bank’s generous support, 650 elementary and middle school children in under-served communities will be empowered to become 21st century thinkers by awakening their entrepreneurial spirit. We are also proud to partner with U.S. Bank as the sponsor and host for our first ever BizWorld Academy in Southern California. Bank employees will join us to mentor students and share valuable career insights during this engaging field trip. We are thrilled to work with you!”

BizWorld.org’s Adventures at ISTE! Janet and Sherry had the honor of meeting so many innovative and enthusiastic teachers at the International Society of Technology Education (ISTE) conference in Philadelphia, PA this summer. We wanted to share some of the highlights! In addition to all the high tech gadgets at the exhibit hall, we had so much fun snapping photos with educators on our BizMovie red carpet. We had an amazing week at ISTE 2015 meeting and collaborating with thousands of extraordinary educators who came by our booth to learn more about BizWorld.org. It was so great to meet some of our long-time BizWorld teachers as well as others newly interested in bringing our programs to their classrooms in the future. Thank you to our partners at ISTE for the opportunity to participate in such an exciting community of thought leaders in Education. And a big shout-out to Dunkin Donuts for keeping the dynamic duo running!