Used coffee grounds turned into fuel logs, battery-free heating vests: five U of T teams compete in Hult Prize regionals this weekend

ullahnor — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 18:02:14 +0000

ullahnor Wed, 03/01/2017 - 13:02

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From left to right, winners of U of T's Hult Prize competition include Matthew Frehlich, Lucas Siow, Sam Bennett and Gowtham Ramachandran (photo courtesy of Sam Bennett)

Tyler Irving

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Tyler Irving

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Global Lens

Hult Prize

Rotman School of Management

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

U of T Mississauga

OISE

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This year's theme is restoring rights and dignity to the world's 10 million refugees

U of T students headed to the next round of the Hult Prize – considered the world's largest student competition for social good – are hoping to show how a simple mixture of used coffee grounds, wax and sugar can help restore the dignity of refugees around the world.

Team Moto – named after the Swahili word for fire – is competing this Friday in the Shanghai Regionals of the Hult Prize, an annual $1-million competition that aims to create and launch startup enterprises that address challenges faced by billions of people. The team is this year's winner of the U of T phase of the competition. But, altogether five U of T teams – four applied on their own to the Clinton Global Initiative's 2017 Hult Prize challenge – are headed to regional competitions around the world.

This year’s social enterprise face-off focuses on restoring the rights and dignity of people and societies forced into motion due to social injustices, politics, economic pressures, climate change and war. Winners of the regionals then move into an incubator where they'll prep for finals in September.

Team Moto’s fuel log is made from used coffee grounds held together with wax and sugar (photo by Team Moto)

For their design, members of Team Moto sought to overcome a massive daily challenge faced by residents of African refugee camps: gathering firewood.

“A lot of the time, it’s women and children that are going to harvest firewood,” says Matthew Frehlich, a master's student at U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, who is a part of Team Moto. “Because of deforestation, they have to trek up to 15 kilometres to get this firewood. Once they are outside of the camps, they are vulnerable to violence.”

Frehlich and his team members – the Rotman School of Management's MBA candidates Sam Bennett, Gowtham Ramachandran, Lucas Siow and Lucy Yang – want to eliminate the need for this dangerous trip. Their solution is a fuel log that could be manufactured from low-cost waste materials repurposed from coffee-drinking countries.

“We came across the original recipe for a coffee-based fuel log on Instagram,” says Frehlich “It was meant to be a decorative holiday log, but we realized it had potential for our purposes because it used a product that would otherwise be discarded as waste, which makes it inexpensive to produce.”

Last fall the team started scavenging coffee grounds from local retailers, baking fuel logs in a loaf pan and testing them in a backyard barbecue.

Their product can burn for up to 90 minutes, providing enough heat to cook standard food rations. They have now secured partnerships with local coffee producers to supply raw materials for their pilot project.

After beating more than 20 other teams at U of T's Hult competition Team Moto has been focused on improving the product and pitch for the regional competition in Shanghai.

“We feel confident knowing that we've done everything we can to prepare ourselves and our business idea for this big next step,” says Frehlich. “We've conducted a focus group with former residents of African refugee camps to get feedback on the product, and we’ve sent a sample to representatives of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees for further field testing in Uganda. We also have a letter of intent with Starbucks Canada to supply us with coffee grounds for our pilot project. We’re hopeful that all this will give us the edge we need to win.”

Two U of T teams are headed to regionals in Boston this weekend. The Munk School of Global Affairs' Bushra Ebadi, Tessa MacNeil and Mustafa Sayedi make up one team. The second U of T team from Rotman's evening MBA program has developed a battery-free heated vest for refugees facing prolonged exposure to low temperatures. The team includes Jing (Amanda) Wang, Lulu Feng, Nash Xu and Heywood Chu.

The team headed to San Francisco regionals includes Grace Mabika from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Omowonuola "Wonu" Adeshina from �ؿ�ζSM Mississauga and Kai "Candice" Yun, who justed graduated from U of T.

A fifth team heading to the regionals in London includes Zaid Atto, Andrei Dranka and Deeptanshu (Deep) Prasad – all from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Rosemary Yachouh of the Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation.

U of T team heads to Hult Prize regionals with plan for firewood alternative in refugee camps

lanthierj — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 15:59:24 +0000

U of T team heads to Hult Prize regionals with plan for firewood alternative in refugee camps

lanthierj Mon, 12/19/2016 - 10:59

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Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan (World Bank Photo Collection via Flickr)

Ken McGuffin

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Ken McGuffin

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Rotman School of Management

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Team Atollo

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

They won with a substitute for firewood made from recycled coffee grounds.

Teams of students with an interest in social entrepreneurship gathered at the �ؿ�ζSM’s Rotman School of Management last week to participate in the quarterfinal qualifying round for the Hult Prize.

The prize is a startup accelerator for social entrepreneurship that brings together the brightest college and university students from around the globe to solve the world’s most pressing issues.

Read more about the Hult Prize at U of T

Student teams drawn from a wide range of faculties at U of T tackled the competition’s challenge of “Refugees - Reawakening Human Potential and Restoring the Dignity of 10M People by 2022”. The challenge focused on restoring the rights and dignity of people and societies affected by social injustices, politics, economic pressures, climate change and war.

The winner of the U of T competition was Team Journey. Composed of three Rotman MBA students and a U of T Master of Engineering student, Team Journey developed a substitute for firewood made from recycled coffee grounds which could be used to alleviate the fuel and firewood shortage in many refugee camps in Africa.

Engineering's Matthew Frehlich and Rotman's Lucas Siow, Sam Bennett, and Gowtham Ramachandran will advance to one of the Hult Prize regional finals to be held in March.

“The calibre of ideas coming out of this year’s competition was exceptional," said Tina-Marie Assi, U of T's Hult Prize Campus Director. "The panel of judges contributed invaluable insights in both rounds of pitches.”

She said that speakers Rod Lohin, executive director of the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship, and Nouman Ashraf, an assistant professor in the teaching stream at Rotman, “provided motivation and much food for thought for anyone looking to make their mark with a career in innovation and sustainability.”

Judges for the qualifying round included Aisha Bukhari, a Rotman MBA graduate with Attolo SE Inc. who reached the final round of the Hult Prize in 2015, Assaf Weisz, co-founder and managing director of Purpose Capital, Astrum Nanji, founder and managing director at Lux Equity, Hamoon Ekhtiari, director of strategy and innovation for the executive vice-president at TELUS, Jacky Magee, director of developer audience experience for Microsoft Canada, Jamal Khayyat, a Rotman MBA graduate who was the Hult Prize campus director at U of T in 2015-2016, Ted Graham, head of open innovation at General Motors and Zahra Ebrahim, a co-leader of Doblin’s Canada practice.

Hult Prize

Used coffee grounds turned into fuel logs, battery-free heating vests: five U of T teams compete in Hult Prize regionals this weekend

U of T team heads to Hult Prize regionals with plan for firewood alternative in refugee camps

Read more about the Hult Prize at U of T

Learn more about the Hult Prize