The annual Hult Prize brings universities across the world in competition to create practicable business solutions that directly target the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This year’s topic ‘Food for Good – transforming food into a vehicle for change’ challenged students from over 3000 universities world-wide to create start-ups that address global food supply shortages, socio-economic barriers to nutrition and food security issues.
The Hult Prize Summit Kathmandu was held online on the 24th April 2021, hosted by the Asian Institute of Technology and Management college, Satdobato Lalitpur. Over 80 student start up teams from across Nepal competed in the country’s first Impact Summit.
Revital Shpangental, founder and CEO of Anemone Ventures Ltd joined a judge panel who assessed start-ups for their dynamism and creativity and their potential for meaningful impact. After rounds of pitches that lasted for over 10 hours, team ‘BEAN’ from Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Engineering were selected as the winners. Their product will provide the user with a simple means of growing nutritionally dense mushrooms, microgreens and cordyceps militaris, aiming to improve food security within vulnerable communities and break down socio-economic and geographical barriers to nutritious food.
The next round of the competition sees start-ups moving to an Accelerator program to receive specialist training before competing for the opportunity to pitch at the United Nations annual Awards Ceremony and Gala. The prize is a US $1,000,000 seed capital grant for social entrepreneurship.
In partnership with Hult International Business School, EF Education First, the Hult Prize is the world’s largest student social impact competition.
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