BUET ADVANCES TO THE SEMI-FINALS OF THE HULT PRIZE

A bunch of innovative young minds from team "Little Wins" from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) are ready to change the world with their unique idea to solve the problem of crowded urban spaces, with a promise to double the income of 10 million people living in it by 2022. In case you are wondering, team "Little Wins" is the winner of the Quarter-Final round of the Hult Prize 2016 at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).
Under the leadership of Nazmus Sadat, Campus Director of Hult Prize Foundation, the Hult Prize at BUET started its journey for the year 2016 with a Primary Grooming Workshop for a record number of 800 registered participants, one of the largest student engaging programmes that BUET has ever seen. In the workshop several designated speakers enlightened the students on the concepts of social entrepreneurship, business related issues and crowded urban spaces. After that participants submitted their executive summaries of the social business plan solving the challenge of "Urban Crowded Spaces" set by former US President Bill Clinton. Thirty-two teams were selected on the basis of their executive summaries and asked to present their ideas in the Primary Pitch-Off round held on October 20, 2015. Twelve teams were selected to present their ideas in Secondary Pitch-Off held on October 29, 2015, from which finally top 6 teams were selected to present in the Grand Finale.

Organised by BUET Career Club, the Grand Finale of Hult Prize Quarter-Finals at BUET was held on November 12, 2015, at the Seminar Room of Department of Civil Engineering, BUET. The final 6 teams, Aguntuk, BUET Sparklers, Elixir, Excel_sure, Little Wins and Team Rocket, presented their unique social entrepreneurial plans to solve the challenge of "Urban Crowded Spaces", in front of an elite judge panel consisting of Md. Sabur Khan, Chairman of Daffodil International University and Daffodil Group; Mahmudul Hasan Sohag, Chairman of Onnorokom Group and Naveed Mahbub, Founder and CEO of Naveed Mahbub Inc.  Dr. Md. Rafi Uddin, Associate Professor, Department of Physics acted as the Chair of the programme. After watching the presentations of the unique ideas, the judges finally announced team "Little Wins" as the winner of Hult Prize at BUET 2016. Teams '"Elixir" and "Aguntuk" were announced as the first and second runners-up respectively. 

The Hult Prize, world's largest student case competition, is organised by Hult Prize Foundation in partnership with former US President Bill Clinton and Clinton Global Initiative every year. The winning team receives one million US dollars in seed capital to launch and scale-up their company. It is open to undergraduates, graduate and PhD students from around the world and its global final is hosted at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting in New York, every September.

The writer is a student of Department of Materials & Metallurgical Engineering and is the Chief Event Officer of Hult Prize at BUET. Reach him at muntaseer.bunian@gmail.com