For the second year in a row, ULS (Université La Sagesse) students organized a Nobel Prize competition for its students through participating in the largest start-up program in the world for early-stage social venture known as Hult Prize.
The Hult Prize ULS movememt competition was directed by campus director Mohammad Marwan Sidani.
“Hult prize ULS is a movement led by students for students. We inspire students to come up with new business ideas, then train them and educate them to understand all the fundementals to start a business and create a business plan and then we even fund their ideas so that they could compete in the Hult prize competition ” explains Mohamad Marwan Sidani.
Founded by Mr. Ahmad Ashkar in 2009, in partnership with the United Nations, The Hult Prize foundation helps young people transform their vision into being leaders of change in the world around them.
Every year the Hult Prize throws a challenge in which university students from all around the world seek to pitch new business ideas to tackle the challenge with a 1 million $ prize.
This year’s challenge was based on asking youth around the world to build viable food enterprises that will create jobs, stimulate economies, reimagine supply chains, and improve outcomes for 10,000,000 people by 2030.
Hult Prize ULS organizing committee organized the On-Campus final event in the presence of high-profile experts:
-Mr. Maurice Matta, an academic teacher of Economic Media, Economic Research and Microeconomics and a member of “Social and Economic Action for Lebanon (SEAL)”. Mr. Matta is also a member of “الإتحاد العربي للعمل التطوعي- بيروت” and is a business news TV producer/presenter who is hosting and producing a radio show in “Al Balad Radio Station” under the name of “hiwar bel argaam”
- Mr. Maher Mezher, who is regarded as one of the top experts in innovation and his ideas have been widely used throughout the world. Mr. Mezher has launched the Fertility Loan, the first of its kind, gaining international recognition as the most creative and innovative in its products. Consequently, he spread worldwide recognition after being interviewed by more than 160 media stations like CNN, BBC, Reuters, Figaro, M6, Russia Today and many others.
- Mrs. Elissar Hajj Zarwi, a thought leader, Entrepreneur, Consultant, Transformational Leadership Expert and Marketing and Communications influencer with more than 25 years of experience in developing strategic integrated marketing communications to leading private sector institutions in the Middle East as well as the public sector in Lebanon.
-Dr. Christelle Iskandar, a university instructor and researcher. Dr. Iskandar studied Food Industry Engineering and completed her PhD in the domain of food biotechnologies and processes, specialized in food microbiology and genomics. Dr. Iskandar teaches several courses related to food sciences and engineering at several universities in Lebanon. For many years, she collaborated with Berytech/Agrytech as a mentor in order to guide the future entrepreneurs to build their ideas.
-Mrs. Lara Al Arab, an educational consultant, soft skills trainer and an advocate of integrating entrepreneurship education at all academic levels for all disciplines. Her research interest involves several educational topics, mostly Leadership, curriculum and entrepreneurship. Mrs. Al Arab has more than 14 years of experience as an educator and is the Director of the Career Center at Sagesse University as well as the supervisor of the program.
Lebanon Times was following and monitoring the event. “We are witnessing today something very exciting. We are witnessing the birth of a new startups and ideas that will show the incredible potential of Lebanese youth and Université La Sagesse students to the whole world.” Campus director Mohammad Marwan Sidani introducing the On-Campus final event.
The event included inspirational talks and speeches addressed to the students from Mr. Charbel Fakhoury, a unique figure in the world of innovations and enterpreneurship, a founding partner of Eureka 460 partners and a former vice president at microsoft, whom showed the students through his speech the way and the skills needed to impact and to grasp opportunities and Ms. Yusr Sabra, co-founder and CEO of one of the fastest growing businesses ever Wakilni, whom talked about her personal experience that transformed her from an engineer to an entrepreneur in order to inspire the participants.
The six finalist teams (Team Kitcent, Team Nut-So-Different, Beirut Team, Team Packana, Team Opportunity Catchers, Team Agrilink) that underwent an intensive two days bootcamp, with mentors from all backgrounds, starting pitching their ideas one after the other in front of the selection committee with a time limit of 4 minutes followed by a questions and answers round.
Many new ideas and innovations tackling many agriculture and food related problems were brought to the table as the amazement of the judges grew bigger and bigger.
However, there could only be one winner. The High-profile expert judges selected the winners at the end of the event.
After more than 15 minutes of deliberation where the competitors were kept with a band performance, the moment to announce the final winner finally came.
“Never forget months ago some of your ideas didn’t even exist. You’re all winners no matter the results and this shouldn’t be the end for any of you always remember that!” Said campus director Mohamad Marwan Sidani as he announced the winner to be Team Nut-So-Different that was represented by Marylynn Haddad, Christopher Chammas, Maria Farhat and Houssam Moussa.
The winning team will represent the Sagesse University against other universities and will be advanced to one of the 25+ regions for a chance to win 1,000,000$ startup prize.
Nut-So-Different is a startup in which just one seed is considered a huge step towards solving the world’s biggest problems by providing affordable and extremely nutrient-dense supplements and healthy coffee alternatives.
