A month after they lost the regional round in London, a team of university students may now have another shot at the finals of an international competition and winning $1 million for their pitch to end world hunger.
On Thursday, the five-member BOVER team submitted its video entry to the online contest in the Hult Prize competition, which launches the start-ups of student entrepreneurs who aim to create social change. Bill Clinton recently named the competition in his top five world-changing ideas list published in Timemagazine, and the challenge for this year’s contest was to pitch solutions to solving the global food shortage.
BOVER, created by 2011 alumnus Saheed Badmus, is a mobile platform that team members hope to introduce to farmers in the poorest countries. The team aims to connect farmers to the market on mobile devices and thus increase their productivity.
“The Hult Prize provides us an amazing opportunity to showcase on a global stage the great possibilities that BOVER has in reducing malnutrition and creating profitability of farmers in the developing world,” Badmus wrote in an email.
BOVER was the only U.S. team at the regionals round in London last month, represented by four of the five team members: Badmus, senior communication major Hafie Yillah, senior global development, Mohammed Zia and senior economics and finance major Ethan Grundleger.
For some of the team members, it was their first time meeting the rest of the group face-to-face: Badmus lives in Chile and Mohammed interns in Paris, and the team communicated primarily through Skype and email.
“Before the competition we had never all stood in the same room together,” Grundleger wrote in an email.
When the judges tallied the votes in the London round, the team tied for first place but was ultimately awarded second in its division. However, the members said one of the judges approached them later to tell them they had “the most scalable business model of all the competition in London.”
This further motivated the group to create their video entry in hopes of winning the online contest, which will remain open to votes until May 12.
If the BOVER teams wins the online round, members will enter a six-week program in Boston this summer, where professional mentors will prepare them for the final round of the competition in September at the annual Clinton Global Initiatives meeting in New York City.
“We are asking for as much support as we can from fellow Terps by voting for us. We have the ability to create the biggest impact with both urban and rural farmers,” said Yillah. “Not to mention, we are the only Maryland team.”
