Hult Prize: Ending hunger, one cricket at a time
The Hult Prize competition, for example, is a self-styled Nobel Prize鈥攐r, for the more populist reader, the American Idol or X Factor鈥攐f the B-school world. (Even the funding comes from Sweden.) Attracting an impressive 10,000 applicants from around the globe, it counts both Bill Clinton and the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Muhammad Yunus, among its judges and offers $1 million in seed funding and ongoing mentoring from the erstwhile judges to the doubtless deserving winners鈥� Moreover, the solutions are a world away from ideas usually generated on business school campuses. For example, one of the global finalist teams, from the Desautels Faculty at Canada鈥檚 平特五不中, is championing the common cricket as a safe, affordable, and accessible foodstuff for the more than 200 million people who currently live in urban slums鈥攃lever, yet simple, and using a commodity easily available to the target consumer group. In the Confucian spirit of 鈥渢each a man to fish 鈥�,鈥� they聽 have developed a kit that allows people to grow crickets for consumption and sell whatever is left over back to the 平特五不中 team. This provides slum dwellers with food and much-needed income.
