January 10, 2014

Drucker students advance to regional finals for the Hult Prize

The Drucker School is excited to announce that a team of MBA/MPH/MS Design students have advanced to the San Francisco Regional Final for the Hult Prize. The students are:

Mariana Del Carmen Somma, MBA/MS ISD
Jennifer Atwell, MBA
Kristoffer Osea, MBA/MPH
Ratika Sadana, MBA
Titapa Tanskul, MBA

Hult Prize Finalists — Hult Prize finalists

The Hult Prize was named one of President Bill Clinton’s “5 Ideas That Are Changing The World” in Time Magazine (Oct 1, 2012). It is the largest business plan-like competition in the world and a start-up accelerator for social entrepreneurs. Our team was chosen from an applicant pool of over 10,000 students. Approximately 50 teams (~300 students) are chosen to compete in each one of six regional finals in San Francisco, Boston, London, Dubai, Shanghai and Sao Paolo. Winners from each region attend a start-up incubator to further hone their idea. The grand prize is $1M in seed funding to start a company.

Hult Prize partners with the Clinton Global Initiative. The final round is conducted during the CGI Annual Meeting and judged by many of CGI’s members, including Nobel Laureate Mohamed Yunus. During last year’s meeting, President Clinton announced this year’s challenge: Solving Non-Communicable Disease in the Urban Slum. Each regional winner also receives membership into CGI to further their networking abilities and launch their companies.

The team faces stiff competition from schools such as McGill (last year’s winning school), Stanford, all the UCs, Tulane, and Sarah Lawrence, to name a few. The Regional Finals will take place on March 7-8. Congratulations and good luck to our team!