Hong Kong teen makes cents of finance, taps AI to tackle economic inequality
Por Jimmy Chow — South China Morning Post – News feed
Advertisement Hong Kong society Hong Kong Society Hong Kong teen makes cents of finance, taps AI to tackle economic inequality
Spirit of Youth Award finalist Agastya Rekhi runs three student initiatives breaking down financial and technological barriers
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Jimmy Chow Published: 10:15am, 15 Oct 2026 Updated: 10:59am, 15 Oct 2026
At 17, Hong Kong secondary school student Agastya Rekhi has been teaching finance and economics to younger children for nearly three years.
Meeting families struggling to understand how prices, investments and economic news impacted their daily lives during voluntary work convinced him that access to information was only part of the problem. How that information was communicated was just as important.
Rekhi, a finalist for the Spirit of Youth Award in this year’s Spirit of Hong Kong Awards, has since launched three student-led projects spanning financial education, simplified economic news and AI support for smaller organisations.
He started Launchpad at 14, leveraging his interests in games and art to teach economics, business and financial literacy to children. Rekhi said the project has held about 105 sessions, reaching 215 students across Hong Kong, India and the United Kingdom.
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