JERUSALEM | Al-Quds University’s team, “Clean E Care” won first place in the Palestinian Hult Prize Summit recently held in Ramallah under the sponsorship of the Palestinian Higher Council for Youth and Sports (HCYS).

The summit, which saw the participation of 32 teams from different universities, was held simultaneously with other Hult Prize regional summits in several other countries around the world, in which competing teams were given the opportunity to present entrepreneurial projects that are based on this year’s challenge: “How to secure 10 thousand job opportunities to fight global unemployment”.

President of Al-Quds University (AQU) Professor Imad Abu Kishk congratulated the winners from AQU on their impressive performance which “reflects the effectiveness of Al-Quds University’s academic and extra-curricular programs that emphasize free-thinking and innovation”. President Abu Kishek praised the students’ achievements as a manifestation of AQU’s creativity and excellence at all levels, shoulder to shoulder with all the University’s academics, students, and researchers who work to further promote the university and contribute to sustainable development here in Palestine and elsewhere in the world.

"The arrival of the competition to Palestine has given young adults at Palestinian universities an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and deliver their entrepreneurial projects,” noted Mr. Ayman Arnadi, Regional Coordinator of Hult Prize. He congratulated the participants on the successes they have achieved in the contest and also thanked the Higher Council for Youth and Sports for being the primary sponsor.

It is worth noting that this is the third year for the Hult Prize in Palestine, and that the HCYS sponsored the program from the beginning, and last year it had subsidized two teams from Gaza Strip and West Bank in developing their ideas and projects. As for this year, AQU’s winning team members, Samah Ayyad, Lotfi Al-Atrash, Rola Odeh, and Ahmed Touqan, presented their pioneer project with the idea of ​​creating a new sterilization system for medical clothing.

Based on the results of the contest, the “Clear E Care” team will represent Palestine in the London Business Accelerator, the Hult Prize Castle, which transforms student teams’ ideas into global businesses through live-work programs that leverage leading business, academic, and legal experts.

Since its inception by Palestinian Businessman Ahmed Al-Ashqar in 2009, who was a student at Hult International Business School, USA, the Hult Prize has been a benchmark program for social entrepreneurs. Each year, the Hult Prize team issues a big bold challenge aligned with a “large market opportunity inspiring students”, whether in undergraduate or graduate programs, “from over 100 countries to solve its greatest problem”.

According to the official website of the Hult Prize, the regional summits “provide students from around the world an opportunity to showcase their innovative ideas, learn from their peers, and be inspired by a generation of young people who are committed to changing the world through business”.

As part of its pioneering vision, Al-Quds University seeks to promote knowledge and intellectual exchanges to provide its students with opportunities to learn about world cultures and expertise. Thus, AQU continuously encourages its students to participate not only in domestic competitions and championships but also in international ones in order to contribute to creative initiatives and ambitious activities of global interest.