When I was a kid and into my adult years, I wanted to run for a US Congressional Office. Having spent nearly six years living just outside Washington DC, lucky enough to have studied International Relations at both Penn State and Oxford and served dutifully within the US Military, and Intelligence Community, it was only a natural progression for me to one day run for an Office. I held a firm belief that an esteemed political position was the only real way to create meaningful change in the world. While I would never put down one’s ambitions to be a “civil servant,” these days I am not sold that it’s the primary, or an effective vehicle to drive meaningful change. Today, I am convinced that meaningful change happens at the individual and grassroots level. I’m reminded of the sage wisdom, “be the change you want to see in the world,” from my observation, this is where the true power resides. Which is why, a few months back when I was unexpectedly tapped on the shoulder to be a judge at the Hult Prize Melbourne Summit, I jumped at it.
What is the Hult prize?
On average, half of the people I speak to, are not aware of what the Hult Prize is thus a few basics are in order. The Hult prize was created in 2009/2010, by Hult International Business School students. The students were keen to tackle social issues through social enterprises. They wanted to unify two worlds that on the surface are at odds with one another: the world of profits and the world of grassroots activism. Inspired by the student’s intent, Swedish Billionaire Bertil Eric Hult and his family, created the “Hult Prize” a $1M (USD) grant and student start-up accelerator for enterprises seeking to solve the world’s most pressing challenges; using the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as a guiding light on the start-up objectives and operating model. Since 2010, thousands of undergraduate and graduate business school students, globally, apply to compete for the $1 Million (USD) grant. The young entrepreneurs go through an intensive six months, asked to craft an innovative idea, research, and test their idea, gain market traction and devise a scalable operating model. While most of these ideas start out academic, within a few months’ time many start-ups are competitive for traditional means of early-stage funding; in most cases their business models have been placed under greater scrutiny than their non-academic equivalent genuinely seeking seed funding. The final weeks to the final event, the start-ups judged, advised, and mentored by industry professionals; the thousands of competing start-ups are reduced to a handful. The event is often concluded in New York, where a dignitary and an all-star panel of judges select the start-up, they feel will make the best use of the $1M.
Thirteen years on, and $12M dollars later, the Hult Prize is an annual competition. Impressively, it is an established organisation, with dedicated employees across the globe and the most coveted student-based accelerators in the world. Winning the Hult Prize has been likened to the “Nobel Prize for Students.” This year, the start-ups are tasked to find innovative solutions in “sustainable fashion.” The fashion industry is estimated to account for 10% of global carbon emissions and creates 92Million tons of waste, annually. To tackle this problem, roughly, 40K students, equating to 11K start-ups and 170K participants came together to compete and share innovative ideas. This year the competition comes to an end in Paris in September, just a week ahead of fashion week. Not a bad place to be.
A Case For Change
I was lucky enough to interact with a few of these businesses, while acting as a judge during the Melbourne Summit held in June, a halfway point for the competition. I was able to listen to pitches from students in Nepalese villages, trying to improve the lives and the conditions of the community they call home, to innovative ideas to drive down the cost and energy in wool production in Denmark through to hemp-based clothing produced in India. I had the pleasure over the course of a several weeks to work with the winner of the Summit, one of Melbourne’s own “Many Arcs.” Many Arcs, a team of Melbourne University MBA students with backgrounds across fashion and engineering, have found a way to turn textile waste into building insulation. Over their short five-month journey, they built relationships with local charitable organisation, such as The Salvation Army, established Australian Textile businesses, manufacturing plants in India, and are in preliminary discussion with some of Australia’s leading Developers to replace traditional insulation with their product; pending certification which is slated for late next year. If successful, Many Arcs, just a young team of MBA students will be the first in the region to turn textile waste into a safer, and lower carbon emitting building insulation tool. While I only observed a part of their journey, I remain impressed with the speed, determination and focus they applied to their cause. They came together as individuals seeking to participate in a competition, and exit as a team, and established business.
Why it Matters.
The road to a $1M dollars is a competitive one, thousands will not prevail, and only one will be left standing. While disappointing winning is not the point. Hult since 2010, has both galvanized and enabled hundreds of thousands of students to turn their bold ideas into reality, which is not insignificant. For those familiar with the “3.5% rule,” an academic study that observed social changes in countries from 1990 – 2006, found that it only takes 3.5% of the population to create meaningful change. The 3.5% Rule is debated across academic circles but even if this is slightly accurate, it is not the majority but rather a small sect of the minority that drives change for good, or bad. Even Chaos Theory, the theory that uncertainty and unpredictability will always be a constant, states that “small movements can have world changing consequences.” The idea that most change happens incrementally and not “big bang,” is often more conventionally accepted. Which to me speaks to why grassroots initiatives, like the Hult Prize, are critical in tackling the challenges we find ourselves in, across a myriad of issues from Industrial Agriculture, Energy, Climate Concerns, and Equitable Economic Systems, to name a few. Thanks to the Hult Prize hundreds of thousands of students globally are taught how to initiate a socially responsible business, where profit and activism can coexist.
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