# FinLit — The Capital Mind Fellowship > The world's first AI-native, live, mentor-led finance fellowship for students in grades 5–12. > Designed in Boston. Run with Harvard student mentors. > Cohort 1 begins Saturday, June 20, 2026, 9 AM ET, and runs eight Saturdays through August 12, 2026. URL: https://joinfinlit.com Contact: hello@coinwise.app · brand@finlit.ai --- ## What FinLit is FinLit is not a lecture series. It is an **eight-week working lab** where every fellow ships **one real financial artefact** — a budgeting app, an investment thesis, a credit-card fee teardown, a venture pitch, a scam detector, or a one-page brief — and defends it live to a mentor panel in Week 8. The program teaches students to use AI the way a working analyst uses it: **as leverage, not as the answer**. Fellows keep an AI Workbook recording the prompts they wrote, what the model returned, and what they kept, cut, or rewrote. **At a glance** - Mentor ratio: 1 : 8 (Harvard student mentors) - Format: 8 live Saturdays, 120 minutes each (15 min hook + 45 min concept + 45 min AI lab + 15 min mentor review) - Tuition: $999 (regular $1,299) — $499 deposit on application - Aid: Need-based aid covers up to 100% for qualifying families (≈18% of each cohort attends on aid). Merit vouchers of $50, $100, or $200 via the scholarship assessment. - Capstone: 5-minute live defence to a mentor panel --- ## Home — https://joinfinlit.com/ > "Don't study finance. Build it." FinLit is the eight-week Fellowship Lab where students 5–12 ship real financial projects with Harvard student mentors at their side. **Featured shipped projects on the homepage** - **Maya, gr 10** — compounding tool, $50/mo at 7% over 40 yrs. v3 on GitHub. - **Strategist credit-card fee teardown** — flagged 7 APR traps and 2 minimum-payment traps, citing page 4 of the cardholder agreement. Published as a parent guide, 1.2k reads. - **Strategist tutoring venture** — unit economics held under a $40 CAC stress test. LTV : CAC 13.5×, payback 1 month. - **Mentor sign-off (A. Park, Harvard '27, Strategist track)**: "Strong stress-test. Re-cite source 3 — that's a blog, not BLS." **Three pillars** 1. **Brief, not lecture.** Every Saturday opens with a real artefact: a credit-card statement, a 10-K, a household scenario. You build. Your mentor reviews. 2. **Mentor in the room.** 1 : 8 ratio across the entire lab. Lead analysts design the briefs; Harvard student mentors sit beside you while you ship. 3. **Ship and defend.** Week 8 is a 5-minute live pitch. Your artefact, your numbers, your reasons. The AI is in the room — it can't answer for you. --- ## Fellowship — https://joinfinlit.com/fellowship Two parallel tracks. Eight live Saturdays. 52 seats. $999 (regular $1,299). Need-based aid available. Cohort 1 dates: June 20, June 27, July 4, July 11, July 18, July 25, August 8, August 12, 2026 (9 AM ET). ### Strategist track · Grades 5–8 — first principles Money, demystified from the ground up. 1. What money actually is — and why it changes 2. How real people earn: jobs, businesses, investments 3. Family-CFO budgeting · then a 15% income shock 4. Dark patterns, hidden fees, real-world checkout pages 5. Compound interest — the most underrated idea in money 6. Banks, debit, credit — and how interest traps work 7. Money & the world — cost-of-living comparisons across cities 8. Capstone: your first 12-month money plan ### Strategist track · Grades 9–12 — real-world stakes Investing, businesses, fraud, taxes — fast. 1. Investing fundamentals: stocks, bonds, ETFs, real assets 2. Build & stress-test a 3-asset portfolio across 3 recessions 3. Risk & behaviour — why smart people lose money 4. Reading a 10-K: the 5 numbers that actually matter 5. Entrepreneurship: business model canvas, pricing tiers, unit economics 6. Fraud, taxes & contracts — defended live 7. Capstone: a venture or investment thesis defended to a live panel --- ## The Lab — https://joinfinlit.com/lab Cohort 1 selections — capstones, weekly artefacts, and AI Workbooks from FinLit fellows. Each project shows the prompts the student wrote, what the AI returned, and what they kept, cut, or rewrote. **Featured capstone — Maya R., Strategist '25** A 3-asset portfolio (stocks/bonds/cash) thesis stress-tested at 9% inflation. Modelled across base (3%), 6%, and 9% inflation regimes; defended to a panel including a former buy-side analyst. - Worst case: 9% - Real return (base): +4.2% - v3 after panel - Mentor panel: M. Chen, CFA · A. Park '27 **Other selected projects** - Eli K. (gr 6) — Family CFO at 9% inflation - Noor A. (gr 8) — $50/month-for-49-years compound calculator - Theo M. (gr 9) — tutoring 1-pager defended against the 5 hardest VC objections - Strategist credit-card statement teardown — 7 APR traps + 2 min-payment traps, citations to page 4, published as a parent guide (1.2k reads) - Portfolio stress-tests across 2008, 2020, and synthetic stagflation --- ## Masterclasses — https://joinfinlit.com/masterclass 60-minute live single-session classes, live on Zoom. **Free for fellows; $25 public; recording included.** ### How to Make Money — https://joinfinlit.com/masterclass/how-to-make-money Saturday, May 30, 2026 · 7 PM ET · 60 minutes live. Taught by **George Benaroya** (Professor at NYU). The three honest engines of wealth, why most "opportunities" aren't, and one framework that survives every market and every decade. Ages 13+. --- ## Scholarship Assessment — https://joinfinlit.com/scholarship A short, premium **five-challenge tap-first assessment** that earns merit-based scholarships of **$50, $100, or $200** toward fellowship tuition. ~90 seconds. Challenges: 1. **Lemonade Stand** — pick a price (chips: $1 / $2 / $4 / $7) + optional one-line "why". 2. **Grandma's Gift** — choose between $500 today or $1 doubling for 10 years; optional show-your-math. 3. **Founder Call** — pick 3 due-diligence questions from 8 chips. 4. **News Headline** — from a 10-tile grid, pick 2 likely winners and 2 likely losers (e.g. when oil spikes). 5. **Personal Pitch** — one-line voice on why you're built for this. AI scoring (Gemini 2.5 Flash) issues a strength label (e.g. "Contrarian Operator", "Systems Thinker") and a voucher code redeemable on the application form. --- ## Apply — https://joinfinlit.com/apply Single-page application for the Capital Minds Fellowship. - Supports voucher codes from the scholarship assessment. - $499 deposit on submission. Full tuition $999 (regular $1,299). - Need-based aid: one short form, no tax-return drama, decisions in 7 days. --- ## Capstone (Week 8) You don't finish with a quiz. You finish with a **defence**. Five-minute live pitch to a mentor panel. Your artefact, your AI Workbook, your numbers. Mentors ask questions in real time. The AI is in the room — it can't answer for you. **Rubric** - **Judgment** — Did you improve, edit, or override what AI gave you? - **Rigour** — Are your numbers correct, sourced, and stress-tested? - **Clarity** — Could a non-expert parent understand the pitch? - **Honesty** — Are the limits and risks of your plan stated plainly? --- ## Team & mentors **Designed by educators. Run by Harvard students.** - **Dr. Aisha Khan** — Lead, Strategist track. Boston, USA. 15+ years teaching middle-school finance, 2,400+ students taught. Designs the Strategist curriculum — every hook, every prompt starter, every guardrail. - **Marcus Chen, CFA** — Lead, Strategist track. New York, USA. Former equity analyst, 10 years buy-side, CFA charterholder. Designs the Strategist curriculum and the capstone rubric. - **Harvard Student Mentors** — exclusively from Harvard University. Current undergraduates and graduate students run the live AI labs, hold mid-week office hours, and grade every capstone. 1 : 8 mentor-to-student ratio. Mentor highlight: A. Park, Harvard '27 (Strategist). - **Masterclass faculty** includes George Benaroya, Professor at NYU. --- ## FAQ **I'm in 6th grade. Is this too advanced?** No. Strategist assumes zero prior knowledge — it starts at "what is money, really?" and builds. If you can manage a school project, you can manage FinLit. **Do I need to be good at AI already?** No. Most students arrive having only used AI to write essays. By Week 2 you'll be writing 5-prompt research chains; by Week 6 you'll be attacking AI drafts as a skeptical VC. **How is this different from Khan Academy or NGPF?** Those are excellent self-paced libraries. FinLit is the opposite shape — a live, mentor-led cohort with weekly artefacts and a graded capstone. Many of our students use both. **What if I miss a Saturday?** Sessions are live, not recorded. Miss one and you'll get a written brief and a 30-minute make-up call with your small-group mentor that week. Miss more than two and we'll work out a re-entry plan for the next cohort. **Is the capstone really pitched live?** Yes — a 5-minute live pitch followed by mentor questions. The most nervous and most useful 10 minutes of the program. **Tell me about scholarships.** Need-based aid covers up to 100% for families where tuition would be a stretch. Merit vouchers of $50–$200 can be earned through the assessment at /scholarship. About 18% of each cohort attends on aid. **What does it cost?** Tuition $999 (regular $1,299). $499 deposit on application. Aid + merit vouchers reduce the total. **How is AI used?** As leverage, not as the answer. Fellows keep an AI Workbook recording prompts, model output, and what they kept, cut, or rewrote — defended in front of a mentor panel. --- ## Contact - General: hello@coinwise.app - Brand & press: brand@finlit.ai - Site: https://joinfinlit.com © FinLit · The Capital Mind Fellowship · Cohort 1 begins Saturday, June 20, 2026 at 9 AM ET.