UoG holds the 2023 Hult Prize competition
The Hult Prize is an annual, year-long competition that crowd-sources ideas from university-level students after challenging them to solve a pressing social issue around topics such as food security, water access, energy, and education. It is remembered training and competitions had been held previously at the University of Gondar that allows undergraduate students to compete in new creative works and technologies at the international level by facilitating the conditions and helping them to get into work/production on new start-ups.
This year’s 2023 Hult Award is mainly focused on ‘Redesigning the Fashion Industry’ and 10 universities in our country, including our university, are participating in this Hult Award competition.
After the winners of each university compete at the national level, the winners will compete at the continental – African level. Finally, the winning university students will be awarded one million US dollars. Therefore, in order to take advantage of this opportunity, the undergraduate students who have been competing in various rounds at UoG held their Hult Award finals today, March 4, 2023, at the University’s Aluminum Hall.
The director of the University of Gondar’s Deliveryology Unit, Dr. Aragau Eshete, Mr. Daniel Tadesse, the coordinator of the university’s Nurture Project, audience members, and judges from the technology and innovation sectors took part in the event.
HULT Prize competition received generous support from the NURTURE project, which provided full expense coverage and the dishing out of all of the award funds for the top three competitors. NURTURE is a six-year capacity-building project that improves the capacity of three education programs (eHealth, informatics, and special needs) in five universities in Ethiopia including the University of Gondar, two other universities, and one research institute in Norway. One of the objectives of the project is to provide a platform for co-creation and boot camp seminars for graduate students to contribute to tackling youth unemployment and also in enhancing student innovativeness and career development.
Thus, Mr. Daniel Tadesse who is the project coordinator at the University of Gondar shared, “supporting this International HULT Prize competition is really in line with the objectives of the NURTURE Project.” Mr. Daniel also outlines that the project will support such kinds of innovative entrepreneurial ideas in the future as well. It is important to note that Dr. Shegaw A. Mengiste from the University of Southeastern Norway (USN) is the overall project P.I, while Dr. Binyam C. Tilahun, the Research and Technology Transfer Vice President, is the project P.I from the University of Gondar side.
After all the competing students showcased their creative and technological works to the judges, the creative team ‘Renew Fashion’, which came up with innovative technology that transforms old clothes into new ones, finished the competition in first place. Certificates of appreciation were also presented to the partners who contributed to the success of the competition.
As mentioned earlier, the students of the university who placed from 1st to 3rd in the competition will be allowed to participate in the international Hult Award competition for university students held at the national level.
The University of Gondar would like to wish the students of UoG the best of luck in the national competitions.
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