NURTURE Project supports the University of Gondar students’ HULT Prize competition.
The Hult Prize is an annual, year-long global competition that challenges young people around the world to solve the world’s most pressing issues through social entrepreneurship. Every year, one team receives $1M USD in funding to make their idea a reality.
The competition crowdsources ideas from university-level students after challenging them to solve a pressing social issue around the world. This year’s 2023 Hult Award is mainly focused on ‘Redesigning the Fashion Industry’ and 10 universities in Ethiopia, including the University of Gondar (UoG), are participating in this Hult Award competition.
Therefore, to take advantage of this opportunity, the undergraduate students who have been competing in various rounds at UoG held their Hult Award finals on March 4, 2023, at the University’s Aluminum Hall. The director of the University’s Deliveryology Unit, Dr. Aragaw Eshete, Mr. Daniel Tadesse, the coordinator of the university’s Nurture Project, Mr. Ashenafi, the carrier service coordinator, the audience members, and judges from the technology and innovation sectors took part in the event.
The HULT Prize competition received generous support from the NURTURE project, which provided full expense coverage and the dishing out of all the award funds for the top three competitors. One of the objectives of the project is to provide a platform for co-creation and boot camp seminars for graduate students to contribute to tackling youth unemployment, in enhancing student innovativeness and career development. Thus, Mr. Daniel Tadesse shared, “supporting this International HULT Prize competition is really in line with the objectives of the NURTURE Project.” Mr. Daniel also outlines that the project will support such kinds of innovative entrepreneurial ideas in the future as well.
After all the competing students showcased their creative and technological works to the judges, the creative team ‘Renew Fashion’, which came up with innovative technology that transforms old clothes into new ones, finished the competition in the first place. Certificates of appreciation were also presented to the partners who contributed to the success of the competition.
As mentioned earlier, the students of the university who placed 1st to 3rd in the competition will be allowed to participate in the international Hult Award competition for university students held at the national level. It is understood that Dr. Shegaw A. Mengiste from the University of South Eastern Norway, USN, is the project P.I while Dr. Binyam C. Tilahun is the project P.I of the University of Gondar, UoG.
