The startup company Next Generation of Investors, known as NextGenVest, is working with a new student club to teach the importance of financial education to students.
NextGenVest was created through Grand Central Tech as a company that helps start-up businesses in New York City. The company hopes to increase financial literacy in young adults through three-minute mobile videos made for and by students.
The club at Harvard- Westlake was initiated by Max Cho ’15 and is directed by Cho, James Lennon ’15, Ethan Madison ’15 and Henry Quilici ’15.
NextGenVest itself was founded by Kelly Peeler, who graduated from Harvard University in 2008 and left her job at J.P. Morgan to create NextGenVest.
NextGenVest’s goal and Peeler’s passion in life was to empower young people by teaching the basics of finance and managing their money, Cho said.
Cho was recommended for the program and attended a conference called NextGen Summit held in May.
About 50 kids from around the world collaborated with entrepreneurs and business leaders in New York City, Cho said.
NextGenVest organizes different student-led clubs around the world that create videos to increase education about finance.
“Harvard Westlake has one of them through my membership in the club at NextGenVest,” Cho said. “And what the club itself does is create a video clip for a specific financial topic.”
The club will create a film titled, “Traveling Abroad 101”, a three-minute mobile video about how students can manage their money while out of the country.
Cho and the club’s directors are looking for “committed and dedicated” members that are interested in business and entrepreneurship to help the club create the video.
“I’m basically the director of the kids at Harvard-Westlake,” Cho said. “It’s a club, but it’s a different club. It’s very goal oriented and it’s almost like an extra-curricular.”
Those directors are responsible for the content and creative elements of the video the club wll make.
Club members will also research the topic during the year-long project that the club will finish and submit to the company to be distributed world-wide.
“I thought it was a good idea for me, personally, to do it and mix and combine my love for film and an interesting business,” Cho said. “It’s very goal oriented.”
Cho traveled around the United States after receiving a stipend to visit other schools involved in NextGenVest to promote the company’s club launch videos and to inform students of how to organize clubs at each of the schools.
“I thought it would be a good opportunity to show that not only do I like film, but I like to tell the story of business through film,” Cho said.
