FOUR students of the University of Ibadan have emerged to represent the university in the forthcoming semi final of the annual Hult Prize Competition.
Onele Peter Cole, Amolegbe AbdulMojeed, Sadik Oluwagbenga and Adegoke Rafiat representing team “Facts Count” won six other teams in the qualifying contest held recently at Trenchard Hall of the University of Ibadan.
The Hult prize competition, partnered by former President of the United States, Bill Clinton, aims at building young social entrepreneurs, emerging from universities, with compelling social business ideas that attend to issues faced by billions of people around the world.
The 2016 Hult Prize contest saw presentations on “Refugees – The Reawakening of Human Potential” with a view to advancing ideas to restore the rights and dignity of people and societies who may be victims of social injustice, economic pressures, politics, climate change and war.
‘Facts Count Team’ pitched on start-up enterprise on deploying the force of the digital media to telling the refugee story around the world, providing specialised data services and creating a social media platform to connect refugees’ offerings to the rest of the world.
The team will now represent the University of Ibadan at the semi final of the Hultz Prize challenge, featuring students of other universities around the world, scheduled for any of Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai or Shanghai, while the finals will hold in New York.
Other teams that participated in the quarter finals were Innovators, VAV, Emerald, DamiJoki, Ancora and Quick health.
In his remarks, Director of the Hult Prize in the University of Ibadan, Mr Samuel Babalola said the 2017 competition aimed at offering ideas to address the plight of Internally Displaced Persons around the world and reawakening human potential.
According to him, refugees presented one of the world’s largest untapped economic opportunities that should be explored.
Also speaking, a facilitator, Mr Femi Babatunde said the programme was to charge youths of today to come up with innovative ideas that would impact upon the world.
The panelists that selected team Facts Count included UI Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration), Professor Ambrose Aiyelari; Executive Director, BOVAS and Company Limited, Mr Temitope Samson; Relationship Manager with First Bank, Mr Babatunde Aforinwo, and a lecturer in the department of Linguistics and African Languages, Dr Demola Lewis.