On March 11th, 2021, the organizing team for the Hult Prize at NSYSU held an info session in order to recruit their successors, who will host the campus program this year. This event’s primary purpose was to ensure that the Hult Prize can be held continuously on campus and to expand the organizing team.

Participants were asked to brainstorm in groups how they would promote the Hult Prize in a way that ensured at least ten competing teams and enough budget to host events. The current organizing team held discussions with participants during the info session and came up with some ideas. The first was to approach professors who are teaching courses related to social business and SDG. For instance, Prof. Jeng from the Department of Financial Management teaches the course Business Model Development and Practice of Social Enterprise, in which students are required to carry out social enterprise projects. By collaborating with Prof. Jeng, the organizing team would be able to find more groups to compete in the campus competition.

The second idea was to reach out to students enrolled in in-service master programs. According to one of the participants, many students on these programs are interested in creating their own startup, but they are not well informed about current events on campus. If they know about the Hult Prize, some of them may want to join.

The third suggestion was to form competing teams during info sessions and workshops. This idea was proposed to encourage inter-disciplinary collaboration among students. The Hult Prize challenge involves solving problems that require expertise from different fields. However, when forming a team, most students cooperate with peers from a similar background. Thus, to stimulate the cross-fertilization of ideas, students should be encouraged to step out of their comfort zone and work with people from different fields.

The fourth idea was to build a club. As clubs have titles provided by the university, it would be easier to approach units on campus and businesses off campus. If the prize competition took the form of a club, the Hult Prize organizing team would be able to save time by avoiding lengthy conversations explaining the prize. A club title would give the organizing team more legitimacy and thus easier access to the resources they need to accomplish their tasks.

Lastly, it was suggested that the Hult Prize be indirectly promoted through TEDxNSYSU. Because of its wide online presence, TEDx is better known than the Hult Prize. If someone were asked to tell a personal growth story about hosting the Hult Prize, many people would hear the name of the prize for the first time.

Many participants actively participated in the discussion, which led to fruitful ideas. The organizing team needs new blood to make the Hult Prize a sustainable program on campus. Fortunately, nearly 80% of the participants were undergraduate students. The organizing team strongly hopes that all those willing to devote their time and effort to hosting the competition can join the project.  

The Hult Prize is a non-profit organization that helps students engage with real-world issues by holding a global competition. The global winning team will receive 1 million USD to create their own company.