A team from the
region will be in New York this month to present their ideas to a panel
of global influencers at the Grand Final of the Hult Prize
Dubai, 10 September, 2015:
This month will see a team from the Middle East vying for the
prestigious US$1 million Hult Prize at the Clinton Global Initiative
Annual Meeting in New York.
Established in
2009 by former Hult student Ahmad Ashkar, the Hult Prize is the world’s
largest student competition and aims to tackle grave social issues faced
by billions of people. This year’s challenge is to provide sustainable
education solutions to some of the world’s most disadvantaged
communities and was set by President Bill Clinton last September.
Regional finals
were held in March at Hult campuses in Dubai, Boston, London, San
Francisco and Shanghai, as well as an online final, with the six winners
from each region lining up in front of Bill Clinton and other
distinguished judges at the Grand Final on 26 September.
The six finalist
teams have recently completed an intensive ‘Hult Accelerator’ programme
in the US, a six-week program of intensive entrepreneurial seminars
hosted by Hult International Business School, in preparation for the
event.
Representing the
Middle East, ‘Team Attollo’ from University of Toronto won the Dubai
regional finals with an idea based on closing the ‘Word Gap’. Its
research found that underprivileged children are exposed to 30 million
fewer words than privileged children by age 3. This ‘Word Gap’ limits
childrens’ preparedness for primary school.
Their innovative
idea, ‘Talking Stickers’, aims to mobilise millions of parents to help
relieve this disadvantage. Talking Stickers come with a QR code that
links to an ‘Attollo Reader’ to capture the power of a parent or
caregiver’s voice.
Talking Stickers
can be customized to talk, sing, and read in any language to children
without the need for internet or distracting screens. Since stickers can
be placed on anything, Talking Stickers transform common household
items into educational toys.
Speaking on the announcement of this year’s challenge, President Clinton said: “The
Hult Prize is a wonderful example of the creative cooperation needed to
build a world with shared opportunity, shared responsibility, and
shared prosperity, and each year I look forward to seeing the many
outstanding ideas the competition produces.”
The winners of
the 2015 Hult Prize will win US$1 million in seed money to develop their
idea and roll out their idea beyond the conceptual stage.
Previous Hult
Prize winners have gone on to create the world's largest distributor of
solar lights and India's fastest growing loyalty and rewards program
targeted at the poor.
Ahmad Ashkar, CEO and Founder of the Hult Prize Foundation, said: “Solving
our region’s toughest challenges is as simple as providing Arab youth
with an opportunity and a platform to have impact. Our pioneering
innovation engine sparks movements by connecting bold ideas created by
our future leaders with existing private, public and
government stakeholders who collectively are in a position to rewrite
history. We couldn't be more pleased by the support we have received
from Dubai and the UAE and look forward to the many outstanding ideas
the Hult Prize Dubai will produce in the future.”