2010: Early childhood education , a non-profit organization and the case study of the 2010 inaugural Hult Global Case Challenge. The inaugural Hult Prize was held as The Global Case Challenge and participants sought ways to support and scale the impact of
One Laptop Per Child's mission in developing, producing and distributing affordable laptops, particularly for developing countries.
2011: Global water crisis In 2011, the Hult competition focused on the topic of clean water. Participants were challenged to provide and improve clean water and sanitation ways for the more than 2.5 billion people worldwide, that don't have access to it. The prize was awarded to a team from
Cambridge University, led by
Akanksha Hazari, with their proposal turning into the social enterprise
m. Paani, working on digital ways to provide safe water, education, healthcare, energy, nutrition and mobility to rural Indian communities.
2012: Housing, education and energy In 2012, the Hult competition revolved around global
energy poverty, seeking to support the many people worldwide, that still live without electricity. The challenge was focused on removing the use of
kerosene lamps in Africa by 2018.
2013: The Global Food Crisis Due to the fact that nearly one billion people worldwide are still suffering from hunger, the Hult Prize 2013 focused on the Global Food Crisis. The 2013 topic was personally chosen by Bill Clinton.
2014: Solving Non-Communicable Disease in the Urban Slum The 2014 Hult Prize concentrated on Healthcare: Non-Communicable Disease in the Urban Slums. The students were challenged to build sustainable and scalable social enterprises to fight again non-communicable disease in slums.
2015: Early Childhood Education In 2015, the prize challenged teams to find solutions for the early childhood education gap (0–6 years old kids). The team also named
Ann Louie Li their Founding Ambassador, who pioneered the social media movement 'Creating an #IMPCT'.
2016: Crowded urban spaces The 2016 Hult Prize challenge for teams participating was to present the idea for a business that would double the income of 1 million people in the developing world by 2022. The prize was awarded to a team from
Earlham College whose business idea, Magic Bus Ticketing, focused on improving the public transportation system in Kenya. Judges at the 2016 competition were:
Mohammed Ashour, CEO of
Aspire Food Group, the late
Bob Collymore, CEO of
Safaricom,
Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman & CEO of OgilvyOne, Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day,
Premal Shah, President and co-founder of Kiva and
Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
2018: Transform – Harnessing the Power of Energy In 2018, the prize challenged student teams, from 121 countries to find and evolve energy innovations to enhance million of lives. The Hult Prize assumes, that it is necessary for the world to find more disruption that taps into energy innovations.
2019: Global Youth Unemployment In 2019, a team of Mexican entrepreneurs from the
Tec de Monterrey won the Hult Prize with a project/start-up named Rutopía. The contest focused on global youth unemployment and attracted more than 250,000 participants from around the world.
2020: Climate Change In 2020, participants had to come up with a customer-centric business model that had a net positive environmental impact with every transaction made. Due to the pandemic, the accelerator was moved online and the $1M prize was split among 10 teams +1 jolly.
2021: Food for Good 2021 Hult Prize challenged students to rethink our broken food systems by transforming food into a vehicle for change. Each of seven teams were selected as 2021 Hult Prize Winners.
2022: Getting the World Back to Work 2022 Hult Prize challenged the students to rethink how the can get the world back to work. In this year EcoBana from
St. Paul's University in Limuru, Kenya won the Hult prize. == Partnerships ==