Two BUET teams to represent Bangladesh at Hult Prize

Members of the champion ‘Team Sanctum’ and runner-up ‘Team Incite’ with judges and organisers at BUET. Photo: Prothom Alo

Two BUET teams will separately represent Bangladesh in the semi-final levels of the Hult Prize competition to be held in Shanghai and Dubai this March.

Winning quarter-final level of the competition, the champion team, ‘Team Sanctum’ will take part in the Shanghai part while the runner-up, ‘Team Incite’ will participate in the Dubai contest with their pilot projects.

The Hult Prize is an entrepreneurial competition focused around socially beneficial business ideas, with each year’s competition focusing around a major issue.

This year’s challenge is to create an enterprise that would “restore the rights and dignity” of 10 million refugees by 2022.

The global annual competition, Hult Prize, rewards the winner with USD one Million to turn their ideas into reality.

Both the teams, representing Bangladesh in the global arena, were selected after the national-level competition held on 27 October at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology auditorium. 

A total of 179 registered teams from across the country’s universities took part in the contest.

Of them, 96 were finalised and were asked to submit their business ideas by 5 November.

After a careful scrutiny by an expert panel of judges, as many as 30 teams were selected to move forward to the next round and later six finalists were chosen as the finalists of the national-level contest.

The final round was judged by the five top level corporate personalities, including Lamiya Morshed, executive director at Yunus Centre, Minhaz Anwar, head of GP Accelerator.

Obaidur Rahman, campus director of HULT Prize at BUET, told Prothom Alo he was optimistic about the success of both the teams that would represent Bangladesh in the global arena.