In collaboration with the United Nations, EF Education First, and the Hult International Business School, the Hult Prize Foundation held their Impact Summit in Taipei for the first time on Friday 09th April 2021.
The Hult Prize foundation is currently the worldwide leader in impact education and has trained and graduated more than two-million alumni across 121 countries. Frequently referred to as the Nobel Prize for student entrepreneurs, the Hult Prize is an annual, international competition that crowd-sources ideas from university students, after challenging them to solve the most pressing social issues facing the world today.
This year, the theme of the competition is ‘Food for Good – transforming food into a vehicle for change’, requiring students to present both innovative and viable business solutions that address failures in global food systems, and contribute to building sustainable societies. Sustainable food systems could help the world achieve critical progress in all 17 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Over 100 students from 14 different Taiwanese universities gathered at the Taipei Impact Summit in this entirely student co-ordinated event, participating in keynote speeches, workshops and professional networking events, before pitching their start-up ideas to target the UN-issued food challenge. In addition, whilst most countries have had to hold their Impact Summits online, the event was particularly noteworthy for it being held in person, a further favourable projection of Taiwan’s handling of the pandemic on the international stage.
Revital Shpangental, founder and CEO of Anemone Ventures Ltd joined a judge panel that evaluated 30 different startups’ business plans on their potential for impact, originality and the dynamism of the teams.
After twelve hours of networking events, speeches, and evaluating pitches, the panel decided on ‘Interwellness’ as winners of the competition for their startup plan: a service that provides Chronic Kidney Disease sufferers with dietician-verified renal friendly restaurant options. The team impressed the judges with their courage, determination and tenacity.
‘Interwellness’ will represent Taiwan in the Hult Prize Accelerator program in London later this year, recently selected as #1 in the world for social impact. Here they will receive world class training and coaching to build their Impact Startup, and will be in with the chance of winning US $1,000,000 in startup capital.
We will keep a keen eye on their progress.
For media coverage of the event, see: