By Patrick Obia
DC Stove Element, ousted two hundred and ninty-nine (299) competitors from 299 universities world-wide with an innovative cooking stove which can make use of five elements – electric current, wind, solar energy amongst others.
The eleven hours competition UNICROSS co-hosted, staged online through zoom, saw innovators in various varsities across the globe showcase their entrepreneural prowess.
In an interview with CrossRiverWatch, the campus Director of Hult Prize, UNICROSS, Vivian Ubani Adaeze, expressed joy with the turnout of the competition.
Her words, “This is one of the global impact summit in Calabar, it is a competition that hosted 300 hundred competitors (universities) worldwide; it spreads across over three thousand campuses and has presently one hundred and twenty countries and also, the impact summit held in over fifty country right now and UNICROSS is privileged to host one.
“I am so proud that the CEO of Hult Prize Foundation, Ahmad Ashkar was privileged to grace our platform, the first in history. I want to give thanks to everyone who have supported us and we look forward to more impact summit because we have a team called Organic Farm that will be representing us in Indonesia and we have already had a competing team that represented us in Zambia.
“I am so proud of the innovative impacts we have been creating in our community and in our city, Calabar. DC Stove has gotten an automatic ticket into the accelerator stage where they are going to compete with other winners around the globe for a start up fund of one million US Dollars ($1m). This is huge, we are not relenting our efforts and this is because different competitors will be coming from different part of the world. We will double our efforts.”
Also in the euphoria of happiness and optimism, one of the members of team DC Solar Stove Element, Victoria Ekpenyong Effiong said it is hard work that brought them thus far, calling on students to embrace hard work to attain their goals.
She said, “We are so happy to emerge winners of this phase of this competition. The experience has been wonderful, we have learnt so much and we believe our product is the best and has taken us this far. We know that we are going out there to make our school, State, country and continent proud.
“There is no idea that is a waste, you just have to find the innovative part of it; read header, work harder to be the best you can be, no one will help you achieve your dreams except you make a step and that’s all you need to do” she advised.
They are expected to travel to New York, USA, to compete with winners from different regions.
Hult Prize, is a foundation geared towards transforming how young people envision their own possibilities as leaders of change in the world around them. With a US$1,000,000 global startup prize as its anchor activity, has brought impact-focused programs, events and trainings to over a million students globally, creating a pathway for youth everywhere to take action to build a better world.
Highpoint of the event include music, comedy, spoken words and group photographs.
See pictures below.
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