A group of 80 Bronx students recently traveled to Invest Fest in Atlanta, where they spent a weekend learning about entrepreneurship, investing, real estate, personal finance, artificial intelligence and more.
The conference, which hosted thousands of participants from Aug. 23-25, featured some famous faces, including NBA commentator Stephen A. Smith, singer Monica and comedian Steve Harvey.
Council Member Kevin Riley and Assembly Member Chantel Jackson teamed up with New York City nonprofit Roads to Success and sponsor Zillow to recruit Bronx youth and chaperones to attend and cover travel expenses. Attendees’ travel and convention fees were paid for, and they received gift cards to buy food, so they could focus on soaking in the experience.
Riley met the group in Atlanta fresh off the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He told the Bronx Times that Invest Fest was a great opportunity to bring kids out of the borough and provide an experience on “a high-class level.”
Despite the great services provided by the non-profit in the Bronx, there’s nothing like Invest Fest, said Jackson, who chairs the Assembly subcommittee on microbusiness. Even the long bus ride is an important part of the learning process, she told the Bronx Times.
“There’s something that happens to you as you leave home,” she said.
Jackson and Riley expressed hope that Invest Fest will help increase generational wealth among Bronx families down the line.
“I just want [students] to be open to the experience, listen and learn, and bring things back to the district,” said Jackson.
Felicia White, a 16-year-old from Co-op City, told the Bronx Times that Invest Fest showed the importance of “investing in myself.”
White loves to cook and bake and has always dreamed of owning a business. Sessions at Invest Fest — especially one on building good credit — showed her that even as a teenager, she can take steps to set herself up for future success.
“If I want to start a business, I have to make sure everything in my life is right,” White said.
Invest Fest was White’s first time in Atlanta and first real exposure to financial literacy and business concepts. The trip included a quick stop at Howard University, the historically Black college in Washington, D.C., which she called a “very lively” campus, brimming with back-to-school energy.
At the conference, a session on artificial intelligence got White thinking about how she might later integrate the technology into her business, because used in the right way, “It can help you with literally everything,” she said. White also talked with vendors at the convention marketplace who were able to monetize their culinary hobbies, as she plans to do.
While White’s entrepreneurship goal has been years in the making, the convention “helped me with envisioning what I want for that,” she said. “It was something I’ve never experienced before.”
Felicia’s mother, Akeisha Neely, said Council Member Riley has supported many opportunities for young people, which she appreciates. She was all too happy to send her daughter to Invest Fest — and actually, “I wanted to sneak on the bus and be a fly on the wall,” Neely said.
Turns out the entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family. Neely currently owns and operates a 360-photo booth, the kind commonly seen in tourist spots and at parties, where customers stand on a platform and a camera rotates around them to capture the scenery. Neely has a 9-to-5 job, but she said it might be nice to someday expand the photo booth into more of a moneymaking business.
Neely isn’t alone in her business-owning potential. According to Riley, many Bronxites already have a side hustle.
“They have goods and services they can actually offer people” — but need to learn the business side, which is what Invest Fest is all about, Riley said.
Neely often thinks about what future might hold. There’s a chance she might inherit a family home in South Carolina. And “what happens past retirement?” she wondered aloud. These decisions require financial savvy that she believes is not often taught among African-American families like hers.
Thinking about personal finances and the larger economy can be overwhelming, but Neely said it’s important for young people to tackle these concepts early so that they’re not intimidated in the future. “I really believe in exposure,” she said.
Neely has always supported her daughter’s dream of owning a bakery or restaurant. “If you tasted her food, you’d understand,” she said. “This trip gave her some really great tools to do it.”
Reach Emily Swanson at eswanson@schnepsmedia.com or (646) 717-0015. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
