Why UW-M? Navya Singh

“Our merger deal fell through...let’s pull back our press releases,” my dad whispered.

Sophomore year, I was ecstatic for my parents to ring the IPO bell on Wall Street; their IT company of 7-years was set to be acquired! But 12-hours before, the acquiring company’s CEO walked out on the deal. This unforeseen situation caused their company and spirits to plummet.

My helplessness in the situation encouraged me to learn the intricacies behind business and economics, given my aspirations in entrepreneurship. I began stock trading, investing in public companies by researching a firm’s revenue projections and competitiveness. Soon, I had some money from the profits. Meanwhile, my habitually broke friends couldn’t even grab In-N-Out with me! Like most teens, they lacked budgeting skills. I thought money management was a useful skill that other teenagers could learn to secure a stable financial future in adulthood.

So began my journey to create Trackify, a real-time, automated, customizable, user-friendly budget tracker tailored for young adults based off of Python. We entered Trackify to Diamond Challenge, an entrepreneurship competition, finishing top 16 in the nation! As my team celebrated our win backstage, we received an...