Alabama A&M Students Reflect on Week 1 of the Dollarcraft Challenge

Admin
Jan 20
2 min read

Something meaningful is taking shape at Alabama A&M University — and it begins with students reflecting deeply on their relationship to money, access, and the systems that shape both.

As part of the Dollarcraft Challenge, students are engaging in a 12-week learning arc powered by the Blaze Institute methodology, designed to do more than teach fintech theory. This experience is about building. Specifically, students are learning how to develop and prototype a fintech minimum viable product (MVP) using the Interledger Protocol, a global standard for moving value as seamlessly as information.

Learning That Starts With Lived Experience

Week 1 set the tone.

Before writing a single line of code or sketching a product flow, students were invited to reflect on their own financial experiences — where they learned about money, where gaps existed, and how access (or lack thereof) shaped their opportunities. These reflections became the foundation for understanding why fintech innovation matters, particularly for communities historically excluded from traditional financial systems.

Two students from the program, Jeremiah Provost and Timothy Smith III, captured these early realizations in a powerful blog post published on the Interledger Community Forem.

Their writing offers an honest look at what it means to step into fintech not just as technologists, but as community-aware builders thinking critically about inclusion from day one.

From Curriculum to Prototype

Over the full 12 weeks, students in the Dollarcraft Challenge will:

Use Blaze Institute’s equitable finance frameworks to ground their ideas
Conduct applied research rooted in real community needs
Design and prototype a fintech MVP using Interledger Protocol–powered tools
Collaborate across disciplines, including business and engineering
Prepare for a culminating presentation to the broader economic ecosystem

The program concludes with a public presentation event that elevates student innovation while increasing regional awareness of digital financial innovation and inclusion. These presentations are not hypothetical exercises — they are invitations for the ecosystem to rethink how financial products can better serve people across the last mile of financial inclusion.

Why This Matters

By centering student voice, real-world problem solving, and open financial infrastructure, the Dollarcraft Challenge demonstrates what’s possible when education, technology, and community are intentionally woven together.

This is how future fintech leaders are formed — not by memorizing systems as they exist, but by questioning them and building better ones.