Ten minutes 鈥 that鈥檚 all the time 果冻传媒 students had to pitch their business plans aimed at tackling global challenges to help change the world.
As part of the 2020 competition, a panel of five judges listened to five teams pitch their ideas on Tuesday, Dec. 3. The judges, made up of business leaders in the surrounding community, chose a team of four students to move past the campus-round competition. Luca Amayo 鈥20, Onajite Taire 鈥22, Giselle Mawadri 23鈥 and Gedion Alemayehu 鈥22 made up the winning team called 鈥淭eam SuperMoto.鈥
鈥淭his year鈥檚 challenge is around sustainability, so they (the Hult Prize Foundation) want students like us to start businesses so that every dollar earned for the business is also helping the earth in a general sense,鈥 said AU Hult Prize campus coach Taha Afzal 鈥21 in an .
Team SuperMoto鈥檚 business idea focuses on creating a cleaner and more affordable energy source for households in rural Kenya. The group would utilize an aquatic weed called the water hyacinth that has infested Africa鈥檚 Lake Victoria and is negatively affecting its ecosystem to make up the new fuel.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e looking at business in a different way, like outside of the class, outside of the textbooks,鈥 said Afzal.
The first runner-up was a team made up of four students 鈥 Uyaruun Purevdorj 鈥21, Connor McSherry 鈥21, Selbi Veliyeva 鈥22 and Alli Fox 鈥21. Their plan also included using an invasive plant spreading across the southern portion of the United States to make bags that would replace the plastic ones we commonly use at the grocery store.
Team SuperMoto also won the people鈥檚 choice award at the Tuesday evening event. They will be headed to either San Francisco or Washington to compete at the regional level this spring. According to the , the top 50 teams from regionals will go to a 6-week-long accelerator in London. Those winners will then head to the in New York in September, where they will compete for $1 million in seed money to help fund their vision.
The team is still in need of funding for travel expenses. If you would like to sponsor the team, please .