Business School advances to regional finals of fifth annual Hult prize

The Hult Prize is the world’s largest student competition and start-up platform for social good which works in partnership with President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative. Student teams compete in six cities around the world for a chance to secure US$ 1,000,000 in start-up funding to launch a sustainable social venture. 

The University of Exeter Business School’s One Planet MBA team is multinational, and composed of David Mansell-Moullin (UK),  Scholar Emenike (Nigeria), Laura Zuluaga-Cardona (Colombia),  Alexis Silva-Garbade  (Brazil) and Jazz Singh-Khaira (UK). Professor Nicolas Forsans, One Planet MBA Programme Director commented: “The achievement of the One Planet MBA team reaching this stage of the regional finals in such a high profile competition testifies to the quality of University of Exeter students, academics and alumni. We wish our team the very best for this exciting and challenging stage of the competition.”

The 2014 Hult Prize will focus on the 250 million slum dwellers around the world suffering from chronic diseases who need help – a challenge personally selected by President Bill Clinton. Ahmad Ashkar, CEO and Founder of the Hult Prize, attributes the success of the competition to the shift in the global economy and the millennial generation’s refusal to live in a world with inequality saying: “We are giving entrepreneurs from around the world a platform to innovate and revolutionise the way we think about servicing the poor.”

Each team selected was chosen from more than 10,000 applications received from over 350 colleges and universities in over 150 countries. The Hult Prize regional competitions will take place on March 7 and 8, 2014 in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai, Shanghai and Sao Paulo. The University of Exeter will compete in London.

Following the regional finals, one winning team from each host city will move into a summer business incubator, where participants will receive mentorship, advisory and strategic planning as they create prototypes and set-up to launch their new social business.  A final round of competition will be hosted by the Clinton Global Initiative at its annual meeting in September, where CGI delegates will select a winning team, which will be awarded the US$ 1,000,000 Prize by President Bill Clinton himself.  The President has said: "The Hult Prize is a wonderful example of the creative cooperation needed to build a world with shared opportunity, shared responsibility, and shared prosperity, and each year I look forward to seeing the many outstanding ideas the competition produces."