UT to Host Local Edition of the Hult Prize Dec. 11

On Friday, Dec. 11, 10 teams of three to four University of Tampa students will compete for a chance to win $1 million in startup capital. UT is one of approximately 25 colleges and universities chosen to host a local edition of the Hult Prize, allowing the winning team to bypass the application round and go straight to regional competition. The UT event will be held from 1–4:30 p.m. in the John P. Lowth Entrepreneurship Center on the eighth floor of the Innovation and Collaboration Building.

The Hult Prize, in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), is a startup accelerator for social entrepreneurship which brings together college and university students from around the globe to solve the world’s most pressing issues. This year’s challenge, selected by President Bill Clinton, is to build a sustainable, scalable and fast-growing social enterprise that will double the income of 10 million people living in crowded urban slums by 2022.

The winner of the UT event will automatically advance to compete in the regional finals March 11–12, 2016, in Boston, one of six global locations where regional finals are being held.

The six regional finalists spend the summer at the Hult Prize Accelerator, a six-week program of intensive entrepreneurial seminars hosted by Hult International Business School, to hone their business concept and proposal.

A final round of competition will be held during the CGI annual meeting in September 2016, where the winning team will be awarded the $1 million prize.

The annual Hult Prize competition is the world’s largest crowdsourcing platform for social good. Each year, $1 million in startup funding is awarded to the team of students that develops the most radical and breakthrough idea to solve one of the world’s toughest social challenges.

“I believe in the diverse culture of our University,” said Caio Amaral ’16, UT’s Hult Prize campus director, who is spearheading the event. “It’s all about the execution of a simple idea that will impact millions of lives.”

The event is sponsored by the Sykes College of Business, Lowth Entrepreneurship Center, Benchmark International and TiER1 Performance Solutions, with additional support from Xpress Printers.

General admission tickets for students will be handed out this week in the Vaughn Center lobby from 11 a.m.–1 p.m.

For more information, go to www.hultprizeat.com/Tampa or contact Amaral at caio.amaral@spartans.ut.edu.