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We are one day away from our big event! We are hosting our 12th Annual Education Riskmaster Luncheon on December 18 at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. We are thrilled to honor Eric Migicovsky, founder and CEO of Pebble Technology, with the Education Riskmaster Award this year for his innovations and accomplishments in the smart watch technology industry. We are also honoring a BizWorld educator and champion, Francie Kugelman, with our first Educator of Year award.

Congratulations to Fiona McKeon, CEO of BizWorld Ireland, for winning the Bank of Ireland’s 2015 Start Up Hero Award!

On August 27th we launched our first BizWorld.org Speaker Series event on the topic of “Fostering a Culture of Innovation”. This was the first in a series of panel discussion and networking events intended to bring people together who share our passion for developing an entrepreneurial mindset in children. A huge thank you goes out to our knowledgeable panelists Ross Mistry (Microsoft), Kim Vu (Bank of America), John Rampton (Entrepreneur) and Gurdip Jande (SMART). Our wonderful moderator, David Ahrens, led the panel in an informative conversation about innovation and how it has become a vital component in shaping our corporate and social landscape. Our guests lingered long afterwards and kept the conversation going over some quality networking. Thank you our sponsors, Charles Schwab and PG&E, who made the evening possible. We are very grateful for their generosity and support. Our next Speaker Series event will take place on January 13, 2016, and will focus on the Future of Education. We are thrilled to be co-hosting with our friends at the Italian International School, La Scuola. We will be joined by special guest speaker, Vivek Wadhwa, a well know academic, researcher, writer and entrepreneur. Stay tuned for more information and join us as these short talks spark big ideas that shape the future for generations to come. We look forward to seeing you in January!

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!