The 2023 Hult Prize OnCampus Competition at NCCU was without a doubt an impressive success. The collaboration of NCCU students, the NCCU administration along with the brave organizing committee made it possible. Hult Prize challenge is an initiative that vows to encourage students around the world to innovate and create social enterprises to solve the world's most pressing social issue, it is an open platform for social welfare. This year's challenge is to create an innovative social venture in the clothing and fashion industry to make it more sustainable. The NCCU students proudly responded to this call for the challenge with their innovative business ideas. With a total of nine participating teams, the NCCU challenge this year was welcomed greatly by the students.
The OnCampus Program at NCCU was organized from October 3rd, 2022 to January 14th, 2023 where the finals were held together with 4 other universities in Taipei. The OnCampus Program was divided into different phases; we had the competition orientation to guide students about the challenge; we had 3 workshops and lectures where different professors and scholars of different backgrounds such as marketing, business development, and startup experts came and delivered lectures to competing teams. There was also a mentoring session where teams were matched on a one and one basis with a mentor to guide them with their business proposal and answering any lingering question. Lastly, the preliminary round, where 6 teams were retained, who eventually went on to represent NCCU at the finals held at NTUT (National Taipei University of Technology) on 14th January, 2023.
The 2023 Hult Prize Challenge finals were organized along with 4 other Universities which comprised of; National Taiwan University, National Taipei University of Technology, National Taiwan Normal University, and National Taipei University. A total of 30 teams from the respective schools participated in the finals. The NCCU teams who took part in the finals were Enshade, Sustainia, COSET, Rhyme, and Fabreco. Fabreco would eventually be crowned as the winning team for NCCU and will move on to the quarterfinals in March and then to the regionals that will be held later this year. The Fabreco team expresses their gratitude to a number of stakeholders namely: to the organizing team, NCCU OIE (Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, College of Commerce), and other partners and individuals for their help. Angelica, a candidate for Ph.D. in political science and sustainability at NCCU and the CEO of Fabreco wanted to express how happy she felt: “It feels unreal, we worked so hard for that. At the beginning, we were lost and then we went step by step, we asked almost 20 different people for help and we made it”. She revealed that teamwork made the dream work and this is proof that together and with good determination, we can make great things.
Of course, the 2023 OnCampus Program would not be possible without the help of a strong team, composed of 10 members of the organizing committee: The Campus Director – Bolortungalag Enkhjargal, Logistics team – Brianna Deterville and Christinne Jean Louis, Public Relations team – Maria J. Reyes, Emely Villars, Marketing & Design team – Isabela Hernandez and the Activity Management team – Maria Fernanda Ramos, Eric Chen, Adneissa Christy Aleezy and Christina Jean Louis. We also had the support of our brave ambassador team composed of Tseng Pin-Hua, Chang Chia-Chieh, Chuang Yung-Chun, Chen Wen-Hsi, and Lee Yun. The Campus Director, Bella, a Sophomore in International College of Innovation at NCCU conveys: “I am feeling so accomplished right now and I am grateful that this competition has been a success, couldn't ask for more. Always trust in your team and build a common objective and that will be the key to your success”. She also took time to thank the NCCU administration, in particular, the OIE and ICI office administration for their support, and of course the best organizing team ever, determined, disciplined, and bound to a common objective and for sure the student ambassadors who played an important role in accompanying the organizing committee. The 2023 Hult Prize competition crew at NCCU would like to congratulate the teams on their massive efforts and express congratulations to Fabreco for winning first place and wishes good luck to Fabreco and other teams who will be participating in the quarterfinals and regionals this year. Fabreco has great examples of previous NCCU teams who has made it far in the competition such as in 2015 where “IMPCT” was the Hult Prize Global Finals winner, in 2021 “MAMAFU” qualified for the Global Accelerator and in 2021 “Uproot” was the Global Finals winner, and we hope that again in 2023, Fabreco and other NCCU teams will make history and win the 1 million USD prize at the Global Finals that will be held in Paris this year. On stage at the final competition. NCCU participating team: enshade.
