The Hult Prize is a crowdsourcing platform for social good, named one of the top five ideas changing the world by TIME Magazine. The innovative crowdsourcing platform identifies and launches disruptive and catalytic social ventures that aim to solve the planet’s most pressing challenges. This year, the Hult Prize is focused around finding solutions for the billions of people around the world affected by Empowering the Earth: Bold Business for a Better Planet.

The winning team members from Kardan University include Abdul Qayoum Qayoumi, Aertza Kohistani, Mir Ahmad Jawzjani, and Ahmad Yaser Abdullah. The team competed in the Hult Prize at Kardan University program on December 31, 2019, in the final round of the competition and built a solution to this year’s challenge, Empowering the Earth: Bold Business for a Better Planet. Their solution is the use of hemp fiber for paper production named it No More Tree Papers.

The team will now move on to compete at the Hult Prize Regional Summits in March/April 2020, being hosted in 25+ cities around the world. The team will be a part of the legacy as the first team to represent Kardan University in the world's largest competition termed as 'The Nobel Prize for Students'.

Following the Regional Summits, one winning team from each host city will attend the Hult Prize Global Accelerator, lately announced by Unikorn.com as the world’s greatest social impact accelerator. Accelerator participants will receive mentorship, advisory and strategic planning as they create prototypes and set-up to launch their new social business. The Hult Prize Global Finals will take place in September at the United Nations Headquarters, where one team will be selected as the winner and will be awarded the US$ 1,000,000.

I am incredibly excited to meet all of our competing teams and get to know their innovative ideas. The Hult Prize has helped launch social enterprises that serve the least fortunate, tackle humanity’s significant challenges, and pursue untapped markets. Every year, the Hult Prize has crafted challenges and helped launch startups that actively solve UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”, said Eqbal Nahzat, Campus Director of Hult Prize at Kardan University.

Zahara Mohammadi, a member of the on-campus first runner up team, stated, “Hult Prize was one of the best experiences that positively influenced me. Through this program, I could unleash my potentials and learned how to strive and achieve my goals. Our idea was recycling the plastic using two systems both solar and gas. We are delighted to have reached the final round and titled the first runner up team of on-campus competitions.”

Read more about the Hult Prize at Kardan University here: http://www.hultprizeat.com/kardan