How can students help refugees? The group of entrepreneurial students winner of the Techfugees Jordan Hackathon, organized in collaboration with Startup Weekend Jordan & Unicef Jordan, Profugees have won a place at the prestigious Hult Prize Regional Finals. We learn more about the Hult Prize and how it has solve global problems in the 21st century.
Profugees, winners of the recent Techfugees event in Jordan in collaboration with Unicef & Startup Weekend Jordan, has been selected to participate in the prestigious Hult Prize Regional Finals for their social enterprise that helps refugees. The group, Profugees, won first place beating 50,000 other applicants to the top.
What is the Hult Prize?
The Hult Prize was founded in 2009 at the Hult International Business School by a student named Ahmad Ashkar. He had an idea to crowd-source solutions to change the world using the knowledge of students. It started as an inter-college tournament looking to solve the global education crisis, and then it grew to include business schools and from there the Hult Prize was formed in 2010.
Now the Hult Prize is comprised of a network of judges, advisors and coaches who come together each year to find the next wave of social entrepreneurs. Part of the programme is the Hult Prize Accelerator, an intensive 6-week course to launch and nurture these social enterprises. President Bill Clinton is a key partner in the Hult Prize, alongside the Hult International Business School and the Clinton Global Initiative.
In 2017 the Hult Prize seeks to solve problems around and provide answers to the refugee crisis.
Hult Prize Finals
Aya Al-Nouri, founder of Profugees, and ambassadors Zena Ayman and Nada Hamad will attend the 8th Annual Hult Prize Regional Final in Dubai. They will be accompanied by Ossiria, Impact and Strategizers who won second, third and fourth place respectively
Another team of students, ATLAS, winners of the LSE Hult Prize quarterfinals where Techfugees was judging, will join them there – and compete for a seat at the finals in New York on the 5 March.
The prize is a place in the summer Hult Prize Accelerator, where the winners can develop their solutions in a world-class center for innovation and entrepreneurship. Here they will also compete with other teams in the finals. After the accelerator programme is complete the teams will pitch their ideas President Clinton and the Hult Prize judges. The overall winning team receives $1 million (USD) to launch their social enterprise.
The Hult Prize is a prestigious organisation that seeks to make real and lasting change to tackle the world’s biggest problems, and we at Techfugees are delighted to see it is helping refugees in 2017.
Find out more about Profugee’s project on the University of Jordan website, or visit the Hult Prize to learn more about the competition.