Singapore, 28 May 2026: Following a month of intense judging and tough decision making, the Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards is proud to announce the winners of the fifth annual MAIAs.

Said the MAIAs co-founder Michael Gilmore, “We’ve seen amazing growth since just last year, let alone our first ever awards in 2022. Total entries were up 12% on last year, but the improving quality meant we had 29% more finalists than last year, making selection of winners harder than ever.”

The MAIAs continues to find winners from all over the world. While the USA can celebrate more individual winners than any other country, five out of 17 total winners, the rest of the world was well represented too, from Kenya to Canada, El Salvador to Singapore.

Kenya’s KNEST programme, helping self-employed workers and micro entrepreneurs understand and access pension schemes, won two categories, seeing off impressive competition in both non-profit categories for developing countries and underserved communities.

Elsewhere, an engaging interactive game put us in the loan shark’s seat: NGPF’s Shady Sam, which won best non-profit school-age education. By casting players as the predatory lender, the game teaches people to recognise those tactics in the real world.

Best Book was won by Danish Khatri’s “Ten Dollar Adventure”, a choose-your-own adventure book that scored a unanimous win across all book judges (including the Library of Mistakes, which partnered on this prize).

The MAIAs, often referred to as “the Oscars of Financial Literacy” also awarded its first ever winner’s award to a movie, “This Is Not Financial Advice”, a documentary about the “modern gold rush” into speculative behaviour driven by social media.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, a project called “Second Chance Money Skills” by Texas A&M University, won the prize for Closing the Gender Gap by working with incarcerated women in Texas.

Other winners include:

• Munny Group from the UK, using AI to ensure that everyone can access a 1-on-1 money coach 24 hours a day, won Best Fintech
• Daniel Ross’s Financial Literacy Australia takes the Best For Profit Project for Underserved Communities award for the second year running, while Braden Cobb’s Kidz Economy returns to the winners’ list after its 2024 success.
• Social Entrepreneurship Incubation by Fundacion Gloria Kriete is the MAIAs’ first ever winner from El Salvador.

“This really shows the range of ideas needed to help the world understand and handle money better,” said Michael Gilmore.

“From accessing pensions in Kenya to spotting loan-shark tactics in the USA, from movies to prison projects, and from the UK to El Salvador, MAIA winners are helping the world make money better.”

Please visit ‘Winners 2026‘ to view the complete list of award recipients.

About the MAIAs:

Founded by Gilmore and Trudi Harris, the MAIAs were devised as the first global body aiming to solve the problem of weak financial literacy experienced all over the world, by finding and celebrating the best solutions aimed at ‘making money better’ for people. Contact michael@maiawards.org for more details.