Mega conference

I am writing this blog to make sure all my readers are aware of the First Annual Conference of the Financial Literacy Research Consortium. The conference, titled “New Insights and Advances in Financial Literacy: Translation, Dissemination, Change,” will be held on November 18 and 19, 2010, in Washington, D.C., at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

For those of you who do not know it, the Financial Literacy Research Consortium (FLRC) consists of three centers: (1) the Financial Literacy Center, which is a consortium of three institutions under the coordination of the RAND Corporation, (2) the Center for Financial Literacy at Boston College, and (3) the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The FLRC was established in October 2009 and is supported by the Social Security Administration.

We (the Financial Literacy Center) are hosting this conference and have been very busy preparing for this day-and-a-half event, which will bring together scholars from the Consortium to present their research and discuss how programs, educational products, and policies can best promote financial planning and financial security.

The conference is designed for interaction. For example, it include a series of workshops on innovative products, small seminars that focus on different stages of the life cycle, and a product fair at which participants can try out new educational products and interact with the developers. We are expecting as many as 400 attendees and the agenda features topics that span from video games that teach the perils of debt to building an effective web site for financial literacy to discussions of effective financial education programs. You can find the program and the link to the conference registration at http://www.rand.org/events/2010/11/18/.

A short description of the projects that our center has done in our first year and that will be presented at the conference is posted at http://www.rand.org/labor/centers/financial-literacy/projects/ .

I was attending the Pension Research Council’s Board meeting two weeks ago at the Wharton School, and one of the Board members asked Olivia and me: “So, what are the dates of your mega conference?” I was caught by surprise, but “mega conference” is a pretty good description of our upcoming event, and that’s how we’ve been referring to it ever since!

You are invited to attend the conference, or better, the mega conference! We hope to see you there.