Building Your Child’s Future: Tomorrow’s Tools Today’s Wealth

By Mandeep Mahendru

Human civilization, across 5,000 years, has reformed and redefined the world’s financial landscape. From stone tools to silicon chips, wealth has consistently flowed to those in positions of power. In the current perspective, technology is no longer a part of the economy—it is the economy.

From Visionaries to Innovators

Today, the top five companies in the world are tech giants. Nvidia has achieved the position of a dominant AI player to become the first company to top $4 trillion in market value, reflecting the shift toward data as capital.

In India, public digital infrastructure (including Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, ONDC, etc.) is attracting global venture capital while simultaneously democratizing access to banking, credit, and enterprise tools. It is evident that the geopolitical situation is being recast around technology. The US, China, and the European Union are locked in a “tech cold war” over artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and clean energy. For those, particularly in economically aware urban India, these macro narratives are personal. The future wealth situation of your child will depend on your decision-making aligning with the current trends.

Building Your Child’s Future

To create a strong, forward-looking portfolio for their child, parents can start by taking a look at thematic, technology-focused investing—with an emphasis on sunrise industries like artificial intelligence, green energy, biotechnology, blockchain, and cybersecurity. These are not hypothetical areas but integral parts of the new world economic infrastructure.

Even while the returns in these areas are unlikely to trend in a uniform manner, the long-term orientation is very much linked to structural drivers like climate resilience, data-driven productivity, biomedical innovation, and smart automation.

Diversification across geographies of innovation can assist in reducing risks of concentration. Parents can analyze opportunities not only within home markets but also across international technology systems.

The US remains ahead in AI, cloud infrastructure, and platform technology; India is solidifying its position in public digital goods like UPI, ONDC, and Aadhaar; China is ahead in hardware-driven innovation and scale; and Europe is becoming a hub for regulatory and sustainability-driven innovation. Exposure allocation, either directly in international ETFs or indirectly through Indian asset management companies focusing on global themes, can enable children's portfolios to experience several growth trajectories while becoming resilient.

Together with this, financial capital needs to be supported by intellectual capital. A future-oriented investment strategy becomes all the more potent when it is combined with long-term learning objectives.

Parents might think in terms of allocating resources to skills that increase in value over the long term, e.g., STEM, computational thinking, entrepreneurial mentality, and creative digital literacy. Coding bootcamps, for example, don't have to be thought of as a transition to tech jobs; instead, they are an early introduction to the logic of the digital economy. Options like innovation camps, virtual accelerators, or incubation challenges at the school level can intensify financial-tech exposure and give students an early sense of ownership over new areas.

Government policies and programs like production-linked incentives (PLI), green energy subsidies, digital lending mandates, and data localization guidelines become stepping stones to align with dynamic markets. India’s policy thrust in semiconductors and hydrogen energy, or the RBI’s evolving stance on digital public infrastructure, may serve as cues for thematic realignment. Globally, instruments such as the European Union’s taxonomy for sustainable finance or the U.S. CHIPS Act similarly indicate where future capital and innovation are likely to flow.

However, parents also need to be mindful of the risks inherent in high-growth sectors. Volatility, regulatory risk, and technological obsolescence may deplete portfolio value when exposure is not well-designed. A safe rule would be to steer clear of overexposure to individual tech stocks, lightly regulated cryptocurrency tokens, or poorly founded speculative ventures. Focus could be on funds or vehicles providing diversified, research-based exposure to innovation-focused businesses with sustainable long-term viability. It is important to analyze the underlying economics, capital efficiency, and governance record of such investments.

Parental Involvement in Financial Planning

In the current scenario where financial scope is becoming even more complex and boundaryless, ‘financial planners’ will bring value to parents for creating their child’s long-term portfolio. Families can navigate sector-specific risks, identify suitable frames for climatic exposure, and align investments according to the educational and future goals of the child.

Typically, planners help in choosing mutual funds or ETFs offering exposure to global tech themes while calculating currency risk, taxation, and longevity of fund. Towards investment plans linked to educational milestones, planners can help parents decide appropriate asset allocations and review mechanisms, especially in sectors with higher volatility such as biotech or clean energy. Balancing policy signals and government updates with practical portfolio adjustments, planners create frameworks related to data privacy, digital lending, or sustainability disclosures, while assessing the implications for relevant sectors and recommending rebalancing where needed.

The role of a financial planner can become a part of the child’s financial education journey. Children can be included by parents in periodic review discussions—introducing them to concepts such as long-term compounding, diversification, or sectoral rotation in a structured and supervised manner.

For families aiming to build a tech-aligned, future-ready investment corpus, the guidance of a qualified planner can provide not just professional expertise but also continuity and accountability over the long term. In this context, financial planners complement, rather than replace, the parent’s central role in shaping a child’s financial foundation.

Future Vision for Investing

A child’s financial investment portfolio is not just an instrument but a path carved on the values and vision of the parents, as they prepare the next generation with not only capital but also an informed understanding of the world they will inherit.

The consequences of which will be evident from the sense of direction in their children, their understanding of external circumstances, and how they are able to navigate through such forces. In this framework, technology is no longer just a supporting tool; it becomes the primary medium through which financial security, opportunity, and adaptability will be achieved.

(The author is Professor, IBS Gurugram, India and Visiting Professor, Széchenyi István Egyetem, Győr, Hungary)

(Disclaimer: Views expressed are the author's own, and Outlook Money does not necessarily subscribe to them. Outlook Money shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.)