27th November 2020, Kathmandu
The final event of the Hult Prize On-campus program at IOF was successfully organized. On November 24, 2020. 14 teams from IOF, Pokhara, IOF, Hetauda, and KaFCol participated in the competition and pitched their ideas based on the Hult Prize challenge for 2020/21 ‘Food for Good: Transforming food into a vehicle for change’ in the event finale.
Team Amrit of IOF, Pokhara Campus was the On-Campus winner grabbing the Rs. 10,000 prize while also qualifying for the Hult Prize regionals.
Given the current COVID scenario, the event had to shift towards the digital platform, being organized on Zoom Meetings.
The meeting room was hosted by the Institute of Forestry, Hetauda Campus with the event being started at 9:30 and lasting nearly 6 hours. The Hult Prize On-Campus organizing committee members of IOF, Urusha Lamsal, Anusha Shrestha, and JyotiDhakal moderated the event while the Campus Director, Aayush Bhattarai passed the vote of thanks and concluded the event.
The event saw a panel of 7 judges which includes Bishnu Karki from merojob, Nepal’s No. 1 Jobsite, Madan Lamsal, Editor-in-Chief of the Arthik Abhiyan National daily and New Business Age Monthly, Bibek Dahal, a renowned social entrepreneur from Biratnagar who’s associated with OB Media Pvt. Ltd. and Nepmeds, Kiran Timsina, co-founder of Urban Girl, Sujan Raja Shrestha, Director of Sovereign Education Network Pvt. Ltd., Niraj Karmacharya, founder and Managing director of Jaguar Investments Pvt. Ltd, and Sunita Nhemaphuki, chairperson and co-founder of R & D Innovative Solution.
Karna Shakya, forestry turned hotel-entrepreneur who owns a series of eco-hotels all over the country, was the chief guest for the event.
Staying for the full event, Shakya also delivered a speech on biodiversity and conservation.
Dr. Maheshwor Dhakal, Joint Secretary at Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, Nepal, Krishna Raj Tiwari, Dean at Institute of Forestry, and Susan Dangol, Hult Prize Nepal Community builder were the special guests in the event.
The Hult Prize at IOF partnered with Maker Valley as an Innovative Partner and with Chandragiri News and ICTFrame as Media and Outreach Partner. Maker Valley provided the On-Campus participants of the Institute of Forestry training on Design Thinking to prepare them for the On-Campus event.
Hosted jointly by the Hult Prize Foundation, Hult Business School and the United Nations, the Hult Prize competition invites miscellaneous innovators from various universities all around the world to tackle a constraining social issue.
The students participating in the competition are asked to devise an idea about a scalable, sustainable social enterprise that can overcome the challenge put forward by the Hult Prize Foundation.
The 4-tier competition prizes the best idea out of all the on-campus champions and wildcard entries a US$ 1 million global startup prize as its anchor activity while also bringing impact-focused programs, events and, training to over a million students globally, creating a pathway for youth everywhere to take action to build a better world.
The Hult Prize Competition has seen the involvement of over 50 on-campuses in Nepal this term, a skyrocketed number as compared to the previous’ 10.
Given the increased numbers of on-campus champions and with some possible wild-card additions as well, the Hult Prize Nepal Community is planning to facilitate the Hult Prize regional participants with acceleratory pieces of training and workshops, according to Hult Prize Nepal Community Builder, Susan Dangol.
