Colombia using board games and gamification to teach youngsters crypto and stock trading
The Colombian government has opted to fund a new smartphone app that would teach youngsters about the cryptocurrency and stock market investment market through the use of board games and books.
The game so proposed is dubbed ‘B Coin’, originally ideated by Henry Jean Velásquez. The idea is in response to an appeal by the government for innovative projects to foster financial literacy among the youth of Colombia.
Velásquez dubs the game as “B Coin: Learn to Invest in the Stock Market,” where it would simulate the experience of retail trading among players. Once a user enters to invest against two other players, each of them would have to interpret stock market movements to buy and sell at the right time for maximizing their earnings. They would also have to buy cryptocurrencies, stocks, trade and commodities in forex markets. He adds that each asset in the gaming verse, similar to real-world stock markets, has a particular trend that is simple to interpret.
Velásquez cited research studies conducted by his firm, Gameday, that revealed that only 1 per cent of Colombia’s schools teach economic literacy. The study has been his source of inspiration for project B Coin. He further discussed how his dream grew bigger when in 2014, a government decree called for financial and economic education in Colombia as a major theme in the country’s schools so that children can better understand the dynamics of the financial system from an early stage.
The Colombian government had appealed as a part of the Crea Digital Call 2021 framework to enhance financial literacy among Colombia’s youngsters. The initiative is a joint venture between the Central government and Colombia’s Ministries of Culture and of Science, Technology and Innovation.
As the winner of the innovation project, Velásquez would receive 119 million pesos (approximately $31,000), for which he would display a transformed version of the proposed game. The presentation is set to be in a downloadable graphic novel for Windows and Android by November 2021, following which, the app would be distributed in December in popular app stores.
Velásquez shared that through a creative consensus, it has been concluded that the game would be developed into a graphic novel format as it would be easier to teach. In addition to the transformed version, he is also required to produce a board game and book by March 2022, both of which would strengthen the project.
