InvestInGirls

Girls may try different investment styles
Girls may input their nickname and age to proceed
Simulation Result is shown at last. Girls may always start over to try different inputs.
Home Page of InvestInGirls Web App

Inspiration

As young women ourselves who have recently learned the importance of investing and have since begun, we realized that teaching children about money from a young age is important.

Moreover, in a society where we encourage women to be more independent, the financial literacy of young females are even more paramount.

What it does

This web application aims to provide an easy & exploratory learning environment for girls from age 10 to 15. The goal of this application is to help girls gain financial literacy and understand the risks and rewards of investing. It does not require signing in, nor does it collect sensitive information of the girls, therefore, protects their privacy. Also, girls can play it multiple times to try out different inputs to understand the mechanisms of different investments.

How we built it

We built the web application framework using React in JavaScript and our UI/UX using a popular React framework called material-ui. The mechanism of the stock market is built using simulation in JS.

Challenges we ran into

The simulation of the stock market was originally constructed using Python and Matplotlib. However, due to the difficulty of integrating the Python code with JavaScript, we rewrote the Python functions in JS. To simulate the compound interest, we used Chart.js in JavaScript.

Also, our web developers were using React and UI frameworks for the first time! As they were not familiar with the environment, they ran into challenges along the way such as: using React Hooks to collect user data so that it was synchronous throughout the parent and child files, formatting UI appropriately, and generating a line chart based on user data.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Constructing a working web application that will send user inputs to back-end to compute a graph simulation of their investment throughout given years, perform calculations, and display results in graphical format. (Also our form stepper!)

What we learned

Creating web applications using JavaScript, Simulation & visualization in Python & JavaScript, Using different frameworks for web application development in JavaScript, and teamwork & communication with friends you just made.

What's next for InvestInGirls

More educational material on our platform; More engaging activities, such as trading simulation and educational videos; continue to provide these services without costs and with the intention to provide a safe learning environment; and create a “Girls Investing Community” for them to share their knowledge.