Two full-time MBA teams from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business advanced to the regional finals of the fifth annual Hult Prize competition. The Hult Competition is the world’s largest student clash where top-tier business schools go head-to-head and compete for $1 million in start-up funding to solve President Clinton’s Healthcare Challenge
The competition is in partnership with former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative. The innovative crowd-sourcing platform identifies and launches disruptive and catalytic social ventures that aim to solve the planet’s most pressing challenges.
Competing at a regional site in Boston is a team of second-year Smith MBAs, including Joseph Baker, Jessica Galimore, Lily Matusiak and Shurid Sen. A team of first-year MBAs will represent the Smith in San Francisco, comprised of Hyuk Lee, Stephen Manti, and Katie Tedrow, as well as Master’s in Public Policy candidate Jingyi Chen.
“Our MBA students compete in competitions all over the world,” said Ken White, associate dean for MBA and MS programs at Smith. “Competing gives them an opportunity to take what they have learned in class and apply it in a new and unfamiliar competitive environment.”
Both Smith teams were chosen from more than 10,000 applications, received from more than 350 colleges and universities in 150-plus countries.
The event will focus on helping the 250 million slum dwellers around the world suffering from chronic diseases — a challenge personally selected by President Clinton.
The Hult Prize, according to President Clinton, “is a wonderful example of the creative cooperation needed to build a world with shared opportunity, shared responsibility, and shared prosperity, and each year I look forward to seeing the many outstanding ideas the competition produces.”
