The team SOS is improving their project on Solar Dehydration System for the Regional Finals of 8th Annual Hult Prize in March 2018....
HAPPENINGS
The team SOS is improving their project on Solar Dehydration System for the Regional Finals of 8th Annual Hult Prize in March 2018. They were announced winner by Mr. Imran Jattala, National Director Hult Prize at the Grand Finale of the first edition of Hult Prize held at Institute of Business Administration (IBA) and presented by Market Link Pvt. It was organized in a response to the United Nation’s challenge “Harnessing the Power of Energy to transform the lives of 10 million people”.
Sidra Tariq, the captain of the team SOS, tells Us about her project: “About 40 percent of our fresh produce is wasted in our country. We don’t even have proper cold storage systems and transportation system through which food could be quickly moved from one city to another. So, we decided to create a Solar Dehydration System that can be easily installed at home and used for dehydrating fruits and vegetables. This system will have small dehydration sets that would consume solar energy to dehydrate food and increase its shelf life.”
Team SOS is preparing to give their best shot at Regional Finals. They are seeing how they could improve their idea in the light of judges’ advice. Sidra mentions, “We have been advised to create a prototype so that we can show it to the judges in our next competition. Since we are on our semester break, we are working on it. We will also have a meeting with Mr. Imran Jattala when he comes to Karachi and discuss about the loop holes in our model.”
The Hult Prize at IBA Finals had the honour of having the most experienced judges. Joining the judges panel were Mr. Inshan Kanji, IBA Alumnus and Managing Director of Market Link Pvt Ltd, Humayun Bashir, Former IBM Country General Manager and current Chairman National Clearing Company, Mr Saif Akhtar,Co-founder and CEO of 10Xc and Ms. Maha Abdullah, Senior Program Officer at WWF.
The event was sponsored by Market Link Pvt Ltd, a private enterprise that provides solution to complex business challenges. Our Chief Guest, Mr Inshan Kanji, MD Market Link Pvt. Ltd and an IBA Alumnus appreciated the initiative taken and declared Hult Prize as a game changing platform for emerging start up ideas. Just like his company provides solution to micro-enterprises he hopes to see many more social enterprises emerging with a solution to world’s biggest problems.
Over the course of the past month, the Hult Prize at IBA held numerous mentoring sessions for interested students and participants with the support of IBA IRC and IBA CED. They provided advice, training and tips to the participants so that they could start, form and subsequently deliver their ideas effectively.
Ahmad Ashkar, CEO and Founder of The Hult Prize, attributes the success of the competition to the Global Youth revolution. He said, “We continue to be moved by the large number of students from around the world who are capitalizing on the opportunity to develop business models that target those who are in most need.”
