Aaliyah Duah

Aaliyah's tackling New York's affordability crisis in an unconventional way: training the city's public school students in personal finance on their terms. Raised by entrepreneurs in Bed-Stuy, Aaliyah learned that building something was possible at a young age. She taught herself to invest, and by college was already teaching peers about high-yield savings accounts, Roth IRAs, and compound interest. While at school, she founded Financial Revolutionn to bring that same energy to kids — making financial literacy personal rather than abstract. She teaches students about stocks through StockX, explains the difference between buying an iPhone and investing in Apple stock, and shows how SYEP checks can compound over time.

The approach has taken root. Aaliyah and her team now teach across 20+ NYC public schools, and she's expanded her reach beyond the classroom — with a card game for kids, a drinking game for adults, and a business pitch competition for schools. Now she's ready to scale. Building on the city's recent 15-school pilot, she wants to grow her entrepreneurship program, pass legislation that gives young entrepreneurs the same recognition as WMBE businesses, and bring classroom programming to as many New Yorkers as possible. Her vision: a New York that leads the country in how young people engage with the economy.