Media Releases

Six Rotman MBA teams advance to the regional finals of the Hult Prize

February 4, 2014

Top-tier schools go head-to-head in world’s largest student competition, competing for $1 million in start-up funding to solve President Clinton’s Healthcare Challenge

TORONTO, ON – A record six teams with mem­bers from the MBA and Mas­ter of Finance pro­grams at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment have advanced to the region­al finals of the Fifth annu­al Hult Prize. Team mem­bers also include stu­dents and alum­ni from U of T’s Fac­ul­ties of Law, Engi­neer­ing, Med­i­cine, Kine­si­ol­o­gy & Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion, and the University’s Munk School of Glob­al Affairs.

The Hult Prize is the world’s largest stu­dent com­pe­ti­tion and start-up plat­form for social good. In part­ner­ship with Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton and the Clin­ton Glob­al Ini­tia­tive, the inno­v­a­tive crowd­sourc­ing plat­form iden­ti­fies and launch­es dis­rup­tive and cat­alyt­ic social ven­tures that aim to solve the planet’s most press­ing chal­lenges. Stu­dent teams com­pete in six cities around the world for a chance to secure US$ 1 mil­lion in start-up fund­ing to launch a sus­tain­able social ven­ture.

The Rot­man teams were select­ed from 10,000 appli­ca­tions received from over 350 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in over 150 coun­tries. The Hult Prize region­al com­pe­ti­tions will take place on March 7 and 8 in Boston, San Fran­cis­co, Lon­don, Dubai, Shang­hai and Sao Paulo.

“This year with the Rot­man Entre­pre­neur­ship and Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Asso­ci­a­tion (REVCA), we start­ed an ini­tia­tive to incor­po­rate social entre­pre­neur­ship into the areas of focus with­in the club, with a goal of hav­ing a strong Rot­man pres­ence in this com­pe­ti­tion,” says Jason Sukhram, MBA’14, an exec­u­tive of REVCA, who reached the region­al finals in Boston last year with class­mates Ed On, Jim­my Desai, Nid­hi Tan­ti and Jakub Wik­tor.

“We start­ed in Octo­ber with an infor­ma­tion ses­sion, where we shared our expe­ri­ences from last year’s com­pe­ti­tion and pro­vid­ed insights on how to go about the appli­ca­tion process,” explains Sukhram. “We are ecsta­t­ic that the strong response to that ses­sion has trans­lat­ed into six Rot­man teams that have made the region­al finals. Over the next month, REVCA plans to pro­vide resources and guid­ance to the teams com­pet­ing and we aim to sup­port them in any way we can in prepa­ra­tion for their pre­sen­ta­tions in March.”

The 2014 Hult Prize will focus on the 250 mil­lion slum dwellers around the world suf­fer­ing from chron­ic dis­eases who need help – a chal­lenge per­son­al­ly select­ed by Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton. Ahmad Ashkar, CEO and Founder of the Hult Prize, attrib­ut­es the suc­cess of the com­pe­ti­tion to the shift in the glob­al econ­o­my and the mil­len­ni­al generation’s refusal to live in a world with inequal­i­ty, “We are giv­ing entre­pre­neurs from around the world a plat­form to inno­vate and rev­o­lu­tion­ize the way we think about ser­vic­ing the poor.”

The team of Patrick Fine­gan, MBA’15; Shelly-Anne Ram­per­sad, MBA’15; Andrew Bark­man, MBA’15; Mark Kos­tove, MBA’15; and Madi­son Den­nis, a fourth year stu­dent at UofT’s Temer­ty Temer­ty Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine, are head­ed to the Boston region­al final.

A sec­ond team has also advanced to the Boston region­al final with mem­bers Priya Kumar, MBA’15; Emame Akpan, MBA’15; Ran Liu, MBA’15; Abhishek Shar­ma, MBA’15; and Taten­da Chirusa, MFin’15.

The team of Edmond Chan, MBA’15, Piraveina Gnana, MBA’15; Faisal Uddin, MBA’15; and Gre­go­ry Ray, MBA’15 has advanced to the San Fran­cis­co region­al final.

Head­ed to Sao Paulo for the region­al final are Fareena Con­trac­tor, MBA’15; Ali Yousaf, Evening MBA’15’; Parthiban Manoha­ran, MBA’15; Basel Jar­rad, Evening MBA’15; and Raul Valen­zuela, MBA’15.

The mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary team, con­sist­ing of Josephine Chan, Evening MBA’16; Paige Dick­ie, MASc’13  from the Fac­ul­ty of Engi­neer­ing; Bhu­vana Sankara­narayanan, JD’14 from the Fac­ul­ty of Law; and from the Temer­ty Temer­ty Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine, Patrick Lam, PhD’09 (Dept. of Phys­i­ol­o­gy) and Kelvin Law, PhD’13 (Dept. of Mol­e­c­u­lar Genet­ics), will com­pete in Shang­hai.

The  team of Neil Peet, MGA/MBA’15; Michael Ciniel­lo, MGA/MBA’15; Matt Cahill JD/MBA’15; Ker­ry Pat­ter­son MGA’15 and Debra Kiger, a PhD stu­dent from the University’s Fac­ul­ty of Kine­si­ol­o­gy & Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion, are head­ed to the region­al final in Dubai.

Fol­low­ing the region­al finals, one win­ning team from each host city will move into a sum­mer busi­ness incu­ba­tor, where par­tic­i­pants will receive men­tor­ship, advi­so­ry and strate­gic plan­ning as they cre­ate pro­to­types and set-up to launch their new social busi­ness. A final round of com­pe­ti­tion will be host­ed by the Clin­ton Glob­al Ini­tia­tive at its annu­al meet­ing in Sep­tem­ber, where CGI del­e­gates will select a win­ning team.

The Hult Prize is a start-up accel­er­a­tor for social entre­pre­neur­ship, which brings togeth­er the bright­est col­lege and uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents from around the globe to solve the world’s most press­ing issues. The annu­al ini­tia­tive is the world’s largest stu­dent com­pe­ti­tion and crowd-sourc­ing plat­form for social good. The Hult Prize has been fund­ed by the Hult fam­i­ly since its incep­tion in 2009. To learn more, vis­it www.hultprize.org.

Estab­lished in 2005 by Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton, the Clin­ton Glob­al Ini­tia­tive (CGI), an ini­tia­tive of Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clin­ton Foun­da­tion, con­venes glob­al lead­ers to cre­ate and imple­ment inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to the world’s most press­ing chal­lenges. CGI Annu­al Meet­ings have brought togeth­er more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize lau­re­ates, and hun­dreds of lead­ing CEOs, heads of foun­da­tions and NGOs, major phil­an­thropists, and mem­bers of the media. To date, CGI mem­bers have made more than 2,500 com­mit­ments, which are already improv­ing the lives of more than 430 mil­lion peo­ple in over 180 coun­tries. When ful­ly fund­ed and imple­ment­ed, these com­mit­ments will be val­ued at $87.9 bil­lion.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is redesign­ing busi­ness edu­ca­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry with a cur­ricu­lum based on Inte­gra­tive Think­ing. Locat­ed in the world’s most diverse city, the Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables the design of cre­ative busi­ness solu­tions.  For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Voice 416.946.3818
E‑mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool