Multidisciplinary U-M team advances to Hult Prize regional finals for chance to win $1 million
The Hult Prize Foundation has announced a team from the University of Michigan has advanced to the regional finals of the sixth annual Hult Prize Challenge taking place March 13 and 14, 2015 in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai.
The U-M team consisting of students Ellen Duff (M.Arch.’15), Dan Sebaldt (M.Arch. ’15), Devan Rostorfer (M.S. SNRE ’15) and Barrett Randolph (B.S. Engineering ’05) will compete in the San Francisco, CA regional.
The 2015 Hult Prize will focus on building start-ups that provide sustainable, high-quality early education solutions to ten million children under the age of six in urban slums and beyond by the year 2020. The U-M team venture is titled, RePlay and uses a unique, base of the pyramid, business model to engage children in play-based education opportunities while creating shared value in the urban slums of India.
The annual Hult Prize Challenge is the world’s largest student competition and start-up platform for social good. In partnership with President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative, the innovative crowdsourcing platform identifies and launches disruptive and catalytic social ventures that aim to solve the planet’s most pressing challenges. Student teams compete in five cities around the world for a chance to secure $1 million in start-up funding to launch a sustainable social venture.
The Hult Prize gives entrepreneurs from around the world a platform to innovate and revolutionize the way society thinks about servicing the poor. Each team selected was chosen from more than 20,000 applications received from over 500 colleges and universities in over 150 countries.
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 and scale their new ventures. A final round of competition will be hosted by President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative at its annual meeting in September, where CGI delegates will select a winning team, which will be awarded the USD1 million Prize by President Bill Clinton himself. Visit the Hult Prize website for more information.
