The Hult International Business School (HIB) is a non-research based school with campuses in Boston, Shanghai, London, San Francisco and Dubai and faculty with professional experience from various backgrounds. The school is in the top 1% of international business schools with a #1 ranking in International Experience and #5 in International Business. HIB also prides itself on thought leadership as it established the Hult Global Case Challenge in 2009, sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative. The challenge utilizes crowd sourcing in order to help solve the world’s most pressing social issues. As the largest case challenge in the world, Hult partners with global non-profits and asks competitors to develop the best possible solution through several elimination rounds. In 2011, the partner organization was Matt Damon’s Water.org. This year, the competition has opened up to partnerships with three organizations: Habitat for Humanity, OneLaptopPerChild and SolarAid from the housing, education and energy sectors respectively. The overall global challenge being addressed this year is global poverty and these three tracks are viewed as the sectors with the highest net impact on overall global poverty.
MBA and undergraduate students from all corners of the world are participating in the competition. Teams of four or five students had selected a specific track of interest and submitted an application online; Hult received over 3,500 applications this year. From these applications, certain teams were selected for each track to travel to one of the five Hult campuses to compete in the regional challenge which is being held February 24-25 this year. The teams will be presented a case and challenge question from the respective non-profit partner, and expected to present a clear solution. The case is a real-time issue rather than a historical account of events; therefore, students are encouraged to utilize any and all resources in order to incorporate relevant current events in their solution. The winners of the regional competition are then sponsored to travel to New York City to compete in the global final. Those not selected have the opportunity to be a wildcard in the competition through an online submission via Facebook. The final presentations are “further refined solutions” that are presented to executives from the partner non-profits and from companies such as J&J, GE, EMC, McKinsey & Co., Bain and Boston Consulting Group. This year’s judges include former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo; Chairman of Unilever, Michael Treschow; and Nobel Prize Winner and founder of Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus.
Winners chosen from each track are awarded an astounding $1,000,000 grant to implement their solution and are recognized by former President Bill Clinton for their idea. The teams then proceed to map out their strategy and timeline for implementation which is formally announced at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting.
This competition has garnered a lot of publicity given its scale and innovation. Students from schools all over the world including many from Boston such as Harvard University, Boston University, Babson College, Suffolk University and Tufts University have participated in the past. As Northeastern University has many bright students engaged in social entrepreneurial activities, students should take advantage of their experiences and apply to compete in next year’s competition which will be disclosed in September 2012. For more information about HIB or the Hult Global Case Challenge, please visit http://www.hultglobalcasechallenge.com/.
