A year at TIAS: The HULT Prize challenge 2019
May 24, 2019 | 2 min read
At the moment you received an email on behalf of Bill Clinton which said that: "You are receiving this email because your team is amazing enough to change the world!" then you know that the HULT Prize journey has begun.
HULT Prize Foundation, in partnership with Hult International Business School, United Nations and EF Education First, is an initiative that started in 2009 that inspires and leads students to generate startup ideas to solve the megatrends that affect our world. Competing for the HULT Prize is a once in a lifetime opportunity to win one million dollars to launch a social enterprise. On the 10th anniversary, the challenge is asking to focus on job creation for youth by achieving 10,000 meaningful employments within a decade.
Our team was selected to participate in Manila Regional, Philippines. This is a fierce competition, as more than 200,000 teams applied worldwide. The combination of excitement and hard work were present since we decided to apply. Nobody can build big things alone, our smiles are the product of the support of TIAS, classmates, professors, partners and our commitment to have a better world.
Our solution was to address youth unemployment together with food scarcity, through a worldwide network of Satellite Hydroponic Farms around the densely populated cities. Our company was named Green2House. Green2House was designed based on a Circular Economy, producing locally around the cities, making by-products and finally delivering to B2B and B2C customers. We would directly create 15K jobs and $73 million profit in the 10th year even with our Base Case scenario.
In this journey of forming Green2House, we had great partners: Kalynivka and Certhon. We learned from Kalinivka how to distribute the employment because it is the largest Hydroponic farming company in Ukraine. In Certhon, we saw the latest updates in technology in the innovation center for further development of Hydroponics in the Netherlands and we learned from its experience, as it is in the farming industry for more than 100 years and it is present worldwide.
Manila Regional was hosted in the business heart of Philippines: Makati. Makati excels as the key financial, professional and commercial center within all the Asian countries. We enjoyed the multicultural lifestyle, Asian food and contemporary buildings, such as KMC Picadilly Star, KMC ORE Central and Samsung Hall in SM Aura Premier.
During the two-day competition, we met students from all over the world, such as India, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia and Nicaragua. It was a great opportunity to listen to ideas of other participants and be part of the feedback and Q&A session with the judges. It is amazing to see the enthusiasm of all teams. The environment is full of positivism and all of us believe in our contribution to make an impact in our society. This good vibe starts from the leadership team, ex-winners and local organizers. We had the opportunity to meet Charlemagne Quinitio, Vice-president of the Hult Prize Foundation, Carl Kenneth Jaronay, Campus Director at Hult Prize Foundation, Callum Porter-Harris, Global Director of Regionals and Lincoln Lee, Hult winner 2018. While listening to their inspirational stories, we further realized that no effort is a small one to make a change in the world.
We were part of the world’s largest student movement for impact. Hult Prize was possible for the participation of more than 30,000 volunteers, staff and judges, 200,000 students of 121 countries participating in more than 30 Regionals.
We had this once in a lifetime experience in the beautiful Phillipines. The country consists of 7,500 islands and it is rich in biodiversity. We had lunch near the volcano in Tagaytay, dinner on the beach at Batangas, the mouth watering Halo-Halo dessert, and mangoes as snacks even while sitting at the airport. Thanks HULT and until next time Philippines!
We would like to thank to TIAS for the support, Prof. Dr. Carla Koen for input and our classmates Elfin Prayogo and April Hung for the logo design and Cleotie Alentajan for arranging an incredible trip for us.
This blog has been written by TIAS Full-time MBA HULT team 2019: Anupam Kumar Singh, Maripaz Marquez Quiroz, Navpreet Sharma and Sergii Zhabynets.
Read more about the Full-time MBA