Cambridge team wins Hult Global Case Challenge

 Hult International Business School today announced that the University of Cambridge team from the United Kingdom has been selected as the Global Final Winner of its 2nd Annual Hult Global Case Challenge.  The competition, held yesterday at a W Hotel in New York, focused on developing solutions to accelerate clean water access and sanitation around the world. The Hult Global Case Challenge is a Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action. President Clinton delivered the closing keynote address and presented awards to the winning team.  Hult provided the Global Winner with a $1 million prize, which will be made available to Water.org, an organization co-founded by Gary White and actor Matt Damon, along with the winning idea.  

In reaction to the Global Final Matt Damon stated:  "Water.org is empowering people in developing countries around the world to gain access to safe water and the dignity of a toilet.  But the problem is so large we need to accelerate our impact through innovation.  The Hult Global Case Challenge and the Clinton Global Initiative are perfect partners in spurring game changing ideas that deliver cost-effective solutions.  It's pretty clear that philanthropy alone will never be able to reach the nearly one billion people without clean water.  Solutions that leverage resources from the ground up are absolutely critical and the Hult Global Case Challenge is a great platform to capture the energy and enthusiasm of business school students to create lasting solutions to the water crisis."

There were a total of six teams competing in the Global Final round.  Members of the Global Final winning team include: Fabio Scappaticci, Gavin Wedell, Akanksha Hazari, Oremeyi Akah, and Alejandro Mora.

"Our solution leveraged an existing behavior among people -- their mobile phone use -- and coupled it with the existing WaterCredit platform to create a sustainable structure to provide clean water and sanitation to those at the bottom of the economic pyramid," said University of Cambridge team captain Fabio Scappaticci.  "We're extremely excited to have been a part of this great initiative and look forward to working with Water.org to move our idea forward."

The University of Cambridge's full winning solution video can be viewed on the Hult Global Case Challenge website at: http://hultglobalcasechallenge.com/.

"We were able to engage students from around the world in a very challenging way that forced them to think about how business strategies can be applied to benefit the greater good," said Hult International Business School President Stephen Hodges.  "We think the winning idea will be very useful to Water.org and their efforts toward a sustainable solution that gives everyone access to clean water.  We know that the solutions presented today will indeed help deliver clean water to millions and save lives. Congratulations to Cambridge University and all of our competing teams."