Food Technology Student win the first prize in the Hult Prize Competition

Hult Prize is an annual competition for start-up which helps create positive social impact for students worldwide, and it is sponsored by the United Nations and former president Bill Clinton. This is the first time the competition was held in the Da Nang University – University of Science and Technology, starting from November 2020 to January 2021. The winner would be the representative for entering the ASEAN round to compete with other competitors from neighboring countries. This year’s topic is “Food for Good”, transforming food with motivation and creativity, and it is open for all college students.

The judges of Hultprize at DUT

The final round was held on January 17, LAUREL - the team from Chemical Engineering Faculty and Project Management Faculty has successfully won the first prize and become the representative of DUT to participate in the ASEAN round which takes place on April 2021.

Laurel – The winner of Hultprize at DUT

The project of “Pennywort milk with isoflavone” aims to enhance the economic value for farmers in Quang Tho commune, Quang Dien district, Hue province. Besides, they apply the post-harvest technology to create a product that retains the nutritional value for consumers, which received high appreciation from judges.

Bich Phuong, the leader of Laurel, shared, “I happened to hear about Hult Prize from a senior. At first, I intended to learn from other participants. However, after entering the competition, I did a lot of research about the topic this year and I knew that agricultural products  are always a problem that people have faced up to now, it inspires me to do something and I can even turn my idea into a start-up project. Eventually, our efforts were rewarded, but Laurel won’t stop there. We want to go even further to actualize and expand our idea”.

Besides Laurel, there are also other fascinating ideas from the college students of other majors such as merging GIS and Google MAP, which helps farmers to know agricultural aspects of different areas (area, land type, pH level, moisture level, etc). Another great idea is to use crickets which has a high level of nutrition (protein, lipid, carbohydrate..) to combine with materials such as (algae, carrots, galangal root, choysum, greens) to create products like power powder, noodles, cookies, etc.

WREP – The runner-up of Hultprize at DUT

PION - The runner-up of Hultprize at DUT

With the creative ideas, strategies, and business models, I hope Laurel would have great achievement for other competitions to come, bring the project closer to the practical world to make a positive impact. The final round of the 2021 ASEAN Hult Prize would take place in Ho Chi Minh City in April 2021. From that point on, there would be around one excellent representative chosen to participate in the speed-up program by Hult Prize, and eventually the international final round.

Đinh Thị Bích Phượng – 18H2CLC1