JODHPUR : Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur leads delivery of NEP 2020 (National Education Policy) ideals through entrepreneurship oriented inter-institutional collaboration for Hult Prize Competition 2023 at Jodhpur city. The Hult Prize is a globally renowned social entrepreneurship competition that seeks to identify and support innovative social entrepreneurs who can address some of the most pressing issues confronting society. In the academic year 2022-23, the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur (IITJ) partnered with the Hult Prize to introduce the competition on its campus, centered around this year’s theme of ‘Redesigning Fashion’.

Recognizing that substantive problems in society require an interdisciplinary approach to arrive at a meaningful solution, IITJ collaborated with the National Institute of Fashion Technology Jodhpur (NIFTJ) and Footwear Design and Development Institute Jodhpur (FDDIJ) to encourage inter-institutional student collaboration. A total of 21 inter-institutional teams participated in the campus-level competition, comprising 70 students from IITJ, NIFTJ, and FDDIJ.

The competition was conducted through two rounds, and guest speaker sessions were organized, including one by Brian Ndung’u, the Global Winner of Hult Prize 2022, and Prof. Nimish Vohra, faculty of Design and Entrepreneurship at IITJ, who shared their experiences and insights on social entrepreneurship, motivating the students of the three institutes to participate meaningfully.

In the first round, all 21 teams presented their ideas to a panel of judges, and the presentations were evaluated based on criteria of innovation, feasibility, scalability, and social impact. After a rigorous evaluation process, 10 teams were shortlisted for the second round, and the team ‘The Quint’ with their tagline, ReUpyog: Old to New, was identified as the winner, following another round of evaluations. The winning team comprises students from different disciplines, including Medical Technology, Fashion Design, Electrical Engineering, and Management & Entrepreneurship:

Members of ‘The Quint’:

• Aakshi Sharma (Masters in Medical Technology, IITJ and AIIMSJ)
• Akshata Chippa (B.Des, NIFTJ)
• Chirag Panpaliya, (School of Management & Entrepreneurship, IITJ)
• Viswasri Bomminayuni (BTech Electrical Engineering, IITJ)
• Debasish Panda (Masters in Medical Technology, IITJ and AIIMSJ)

The Quint joins 3,000 winning teams from campuses across the world which saw competition amidst 20,000 teams from 150+ countries.  This team will now compete with winning teams from the larger Central and South Asian region who will congregate at Mumbai, vying for a place in the global round of the competition, where the top team will be awarded $1 million to advance their venture.

Supported and facilitated by the Board of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (BIE), a student body at IITJ, the Hult Prize on campus was a great success, and plans for next year’s event are already underway. The competition generated a lot of interest and enthusiasm among the students, with many eager to participate in future editions. The Hult Prize has established itself as a platform for social entrepreneurship on campus, and its impact on the larger student community of Jodhpur is expected to grow in the coming years.

The student organizers, led by Siddharth Rohilla (Director of Hult Prize on IITJ campus – MBA student) and Mitarth Arora (Vice President, BIE – BTech student) supported by MBA students Aayan Rahaman and Ankit Dwivedi, worked closely with faculty members, including Prof. Nimish Vohra, Dr. Sankalp Pratap, Dr. Venkat Ram Reddy, Dr. Tanmoy Kundu, Dr. Venkatesha Murthy, and Mr. Vignesh Mohan (CEO, Technology Innovation and Startup Center), towards the successful conduct of the competition. The organizing team benefited immensely from the enabling guidance of Prof. Santanu Chaudhury, Director IIT Jodhpur.

Jodhpur City Knowledge and Innovation Foundation (JCKIF), supported by the office of Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, has been instrumental in stimulating and creating a unique multi-disciplinary ecosystem at Jodhpur, bringing together students from different institutes and disciplines for this innovative and creative exercise, towards realizing the vision of NEP 2020.