The Hult Prize 2021 on campus round at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) has ended successfully. It was the third edition of this event at SUST. It is a benchmark yearly global competition for the students around the world with brilliant business ideas on sustainable startup endeavours. It is, hence, often called the Nobel Prize of students.
The event commenced on December 19 at SUST. A good number of teams competed this year in the primary round and only 10 were selected for the semi-final round held on December 23. After an engaging battle among the semi-finalists, only five teams climbed up the ladder to reach the final round.
December 29 saw the Hult Prize at SUST 2021's curtain fall with finalists being announced. The judge-panel from three leading organisations of Bangladesh chose three teams among the top five evaluating their overall performance. Team Aspartame secured the championship with their idea being judged as the best one. Team Cipher and Nutrilane became the first and second runner-up respectively.
Badrunnesa Takia, the campus director of Hult Prize at SUST, thanked all whose support helped in the successful completion of the contest. "Our committee has put a tremendous effort to discover the extraordinary ideas from SUSTians, and I hope the most efficient outcome will be implemented in line with the 'Food for Good' theme by the Team Aspartame," she added.
Champion team consisted of industrial and production engineering student Md Fahim Uddin Emad, business administration student Siam Bin Noor, and economics student Mahin Iqbal Chowdhury. They are expecting to have an exciting participation in the regional round to compete with numerous other university champions.
Fahim expressed his hope to bring something positive from the regional round and shared his team's goal, "As a major portion of Bangladeshis are deprived of their daily protein requirement, we aim to produce the most affordable and efficient protein source for the mass people, particularly to be used as a milk substitute for the infants and growing-up children."
The writer is currently a second-year student of Economics at SUST. She can be reached at suraiya36@student.sust.edu