MS Brochure 2020/21 MASTER-MA-Brochure-2019-20-single | Page 81

The competition was founded
by Hult graduate Ahmad Ashkar,
while studying for his MBA
in 2009.
Left: Winners of the 2018 Hult Prize, Rice Inc, interviewed
local farmers in Myanmar as part of their research to meet
their goal of harnessing sustainable energy to improve the
lives of 10 million people by 2025.
TEAM MUSANA CARTS
Doing business to do good
Brought together by a shared passion for social
innovation, team Musana Carts—a group of
three Hult Masters students—reached the Hult
Prize Global Finals in 2016. Their challenge was
to double the incomes of 10 million people
residing in crowded urban areas by 2022.
The idea: A solar-powered cart for urban street
food vendors offering cleaner, safer, and more
efficient solutions to their needs.
Team members Manon, Taliey, and Kei share
the origins of their enterprise:
How did you arrive at Musana Carts?
We started with an idea for solar-powered
backpacks in India, but three weeks before the
internal campus competition it became clear
the idea wasn’t going to work in urban areas.
After some intense research and development,
we reached the Musana Carts prototype, with
Kampala in Uganda as the initial target market.
How did your masters prepare you for
Hult Prize?
Part of the education we get as students at Hult
is having classmates from around the world.
The diverse teams we work in serve as the
launchpad for disruptive social innovations that
are already becoming reality.
H
 ear more from team Musana Carts
at hult.edu/blog
The Hult Prize is run in partnership with the
United Nations; advocates and past judges
include former U.S. President Bill Clinton and
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus.