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ProFi - Budget Buddy: Enhancing Financial Literacy in Our Generation
Hub:GDG Babcock
- GDG Babcock Chatbothon
Many teens and young people lack the proper skills to manage their funds as it is a new area of their lives.
Financial literacy is understanding and effectively using various financial skills, including personal financial management, budgeting, and investing. It is the foundation of your relationship with money, and it is a lifelong journey of learning. It runs deeper than additions and subtractions, involving emotional and psychological intelligence. Considering the changes that come with puberty and adolescence, most people would not be in the proper frame of mind to handle this new responsibility. They will require guidance and adequate stewardship. This is often provided by a parent or figurehead in a person's life, however, it can not be guaranteed in all individual lives.
To solve this problem, we invented ProFi - Budget Buddy, an AI chatbot providing efficient tips and tricks to lighten the load of their financial responsibilities.
Reference: Research Gate - Financial Literacy in Young Adults PDF
The term 'financial literacy' was first coined in 1787 in the USA (Garg and Singh, 2018) and was proposed in academic literature during a survey conducted by JumpStart Coalition in 1997.
Financial literacy refers to one’s capability to use skills for managing financial resources efficiently and effectively (Hastings, Madrian, and Skimmyhorn, 2013). Financial literacy is the requisite skills and abilities that individuals possess to utilize financial resources efficiently, ultimately aiming at economic welfare (PACF, 2008). To date, there is no consensus on a single definition of financial literacy due to its broader scope.
The issue of poor financial literacy (FL) among young adults, particularly in Nigeria, has been highlighted as a significant challenge. A survey in Nigeria (2015) revealed low awareness of financial concepts and products, such as mobile money, savings accounts, and interest. In response, initiatives have been launched to improve FL, including FL weeks organized by the Nigerian Ministry of Finance and a policy mandating the teaching of entrepreneurship in universities.
Studies have examined FL in students in various countries. Research in the U.S. found that business students had better financial knowledge than non-business students. Similarly, studies show that college students often have limited understanding of wealth management topics like insurance, credit cards, and retirement planning. Even formal courses in personal finance did not always improve financial behavior.
The key factors that influence financial literacy include parental involvement (with many students learning about investing from their parents), formal education in business-related subjects, age, and life stages, such as marriage or nearing graduation. Research has also found that financial literacy can impact decision-making, particularly regarding investment choices. However, many students still exhibit low levels of FL, which affects their ability to make informed financial decisions.
A study in Nigeria found that gender, faculty, level of study, and work experience positively influenced FL, while factors like parental education and family income had less impact. Overall, the study showed that Nigerian students demonstrated low financial literacy levels, which influenced their investment decisions.
Our team created ProFi - Budget Buddy, which we believe to be the most efficient solution to this illiteracy. ProFi is easily accessible to anyone with a mobile device and a stable internet connection. It is easy to use and understand with its informal, unambiguous approach at conversation. ProFi keeps records of each user's financial data and goals, adjusting it's approach and tone to their individual needs and motivations. It can explain financial terms and topics most excellently, breaking down complex terms to each user's understanding. It promises to leave an evident and lasting impact on every user's finances.
For detailed insights into our target audience, please refer to the Target Audience Document.
We also conducted a survey to better understand our target audience. You can view its results Here.
After our team had settled on the chatbot's features and means of operation, we struggled to decide how exactly we would build it. After research, we discovered Botpress, a leading open-source platform for developing, deploying, and managing chatbots. Designed with flexibility and scalability in mind, Botpress enables businesses and developers to create sophisticated AI-driven bots tailored to specific use cases, including customer support, sales assistance, marketing, and much more. Its intuitive interface and robust set of features make it a go-to solution for building complex bots without the need for extensive coding knowledge, which our team lacked. Unfortunately, we continued to encounter problems due to lack of know-how on operating the platform.
When the GDG On Campus Babcock Data and AI track hosted the virtual event on building an LLM Chatbot with Llama 3.1 and Streamlit, we decided to take the approach discussed.
You can view a summary of the event Here
ProFi is live Here
Unfortunatelty, we were unable to get our chatbot properly running on time. We appreciate this experience and have learnt a lot from it.
You can view our GitHub repository Here
ProFi - Budget Buddy offers immense value to our and coming generations. Its knowledge base would expand in time, making it more efficient and better equipped to satisfy users' needs. We believe this chatbot solution would be a great impact on many teenagers and young adults. A very good one at that too.
