Hult Prize

Azm University "Shapeshifter"; Team Advances to the Regional Summit of Hult Prize 2020 challenge: Bold Business for a Better Planet.

During the final event of the Hult Prize at Azm university on-campus program, the team "Shapeshifter"; was selected to compete in the Regional Summit of the 11th Annual Hult Prize challenge: Bold Business for a Better Planet.

In 2020, the Hult Prize challenge teams globally to build bold businesses that (1) have a positive net impact on the environment with every sale completed, dollar earned, and decision made and (2) reach no fewer than a million consumers within a decade.

The winning team members include Issam Raad and Neamah Chaarani, both are 5th year architecture students at Azm university.

Shapeshifter team will be the first Azm university team ever to compete in the Hult Prize Regional Summits, which will be hosted in 22+ cities around the world, including Beirut, in March/April 2020.

Following the Regional Summits, one winning team from each host city will join the 5-week Hult Prize Global Accelerator in Boston, lately announced by Unikorn.com as the world's greatest social impact accelerator. Accelerator participants will go through rigorous curriculum that will transfer their business ideas into startups for a chance to win the award of US$ 1,000,000 at the Hult Prize Global Finals, which will take place in September 2020 at the United Nations Headquarters.

The winning Shapeshifter team was selected out of 5 teams from Azm university, who had pitched their business ideas in front of exceptional judges, namely Mrs. Sarah Al Charif, the founding director of Ruwwad Al Tanmya Lebanon, Dr. Oussama Ziadeh, founder of Intelligile, executive coach and founder of Eknovate, Mr Fadi Mikati, cofounder and president of Tripoli Entrepreneurs Club (TEC) and Mr. Zaher Hamedy, Branch Manager at BLOM Bank.

The final event was concluded by distributing the certificates and trophies of appreciation to the esteemed judges, as well as certificates to all members of the competing teams, and finally by cutting the celebration cake!

The Hult prize On-Campus program was organized by a committee of enthusiastic and dedicated students, led by student Fatima El Majzoub as a campus director, and guided by Mr. Hani Mawlawi, director of the Azm University Entrepreneurship Center.

About the Hult Prize:

The Hult Prize is a crowdsourcing platform for social good, named one of the top five ideas changing the world by TIME Magazine. The innovative crowdsourcing platform identifies and launches disruptive and catalytic social ventures that aim to solve the planet's most pressing challenges.

The Hult Prize is a wonderful example of the creative cooperation needed to build a world with shared opportunity, shared responsibility, and shared prosperity, and each year I look forward to seeing the many outstanding ideas the competition produces" - President Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States.

To learn more about the Hult Prize Foundation, please visit http://www.hultprize.org or email us at HultPrizeAzmUni@gmail.com

About the Azm University Entrepreneurship Center:

The AZM University Entrepreneurship Center is a special initiative to motivate and promote entrepreneurship and innovation among university students and the society at large in North Lebanon. The Center shall provide opportunities for students to develop their entrepreneurship skills through participating in various business idea competitions as well as attending related training courses, workshops, local and national seminars, conferences, etc.

For more information about the entrepreneurship center, check the website:

http://www.azmuniversity.edu.lb/academics/centers/entrepreneurship-center/overview