ENPOV within the best teams of the Hult Prize!

5 min readMay 15, 2018

The team comprised by international students won the wildcard round of the Hult Prize. They are now within the top 40 teams in the world out of around 30,000 projects presented.

Enpov and the wildcard round…

Last tuesday, 08.05, Enpov was selected as one of the ten (10) wildcard winners of the Hult Prize, being able to pass through the next stage: Ashridge Accelerator. (Semi-final stage of the Hult Prize global competition — more info: https://medium.com/@pj.patriciojulian/enpov-doesnt-give-up-the-team-is-fighting-for-a-spot-on-the-hult-prize-accelerator-93f18814a14d)

That means that among more than 100,000 applicants across 117 nations and around 30,000 projects presented in this edition, the team is top-40 in the world , now having chances to get to Hult Prize finals in New York. It is the first time ever an undergrad team from Hult International Business School made it to this stage.

The wildcard round consisted of an online competition in which each team had to submit a two-minute video on why the team should go to the accelerator, resumes and a pitch deck along other supporting documents.

Enpov video was trending and the team made it to the next stage!

What is ENPOV?

Enpov is an intercontinental social enterprise that helps smallholder farmers of the developing world to transport food, crops, water and people in the most convenient and affordable way possible, reconnecting them to markets, schools and opportunities.

Enpov solution is to provide the design of renewal-energy based(biofuel) vehicles and to facilitate the environment to exchange the fuel that power those vehicles.

However, the strength of the team is its adaptability and Enpov is flexible to pilot our solution with the constant feedback loops we receive from real farmers.

Why is important to address rural immobility?

According to the latest rural access index by the World Bank, more than 1 billion farmers are disconnected from markets, schools and opportunities. THAT IS 1 IN EACH 10 PEOPLE IN THE PLANET.
Nowadays there a new available technologies such as EVs and renewal energies. However these technologies seems to never reach rural areas.

What is the Hult Prize?

The Hult Prize (http://hultprize.org) is one of most important social enterprise competitions in the world. It is known as “the nobel prize of students”. Backed by not other than the United Nations, Bill Clinton Foundation and the Hult family.

Each year the competition call thousands of students around the globe (undergrad and posgrad) to build sustainable projects that are capable of impacting on the lives of millions.

In this year edition (2018), the challenge is to build a sustainable social enterprise that harness the power of energy to transform the lives of 10 million people by 2025. (http://www.hultprize.org/current/2018-challenge/) (The challenge is also aligned with UN SDGs)

Hult Prize finals will be held the 15/09 in the UN headquarters in New York city. The event will be hosted by former president of the US, Barack Obama and the prize include a seed capital of 1 million dollars. Judges include peace nobel prize Muhammad Yunus. In the finals 6 teams will have 6 minutes to pitch their projects and 4 minutes of Q&A.

What is the Ashridge Castle Accelerator?

The Ashridge Castle accelerator program is the step before the finals of the Hult Prize global competition. The top-40 teams of the world are granted with accomodation and food fully paid to live up to two months in the Ashridge Castle in the UK where they will receive seminars from top-notch leaders in social entrepreneurship and innovation.

There was three ways to get to the accelerator:
(1) Winning one of the fifteen (15) regional competitions.
(2) Winning one of the fifteen (15) national competitions.
(3) Being selected as one of the ten (10) wildcard round winners.

Enpov was one of the wildcard winners.

The accelerator program will take place from 22/07 to 01/09. The teams will have classes about entrepreneurship and innovation methodologies with top-notch leaders. In the 3rd week the teams will be evaluated and the top 20 will be selected. In the 5th week the top 10 teams will be selected and finally, in the last week the top 6 teams, which will go to the Hult Prize finals, will be selected.