Howard McNally was recently named the new CEO of Hult Global Case Challenge (Hult GCC), which brings together tertiary students from around the world to help solve critical social challenges. McNally, a former COO at AT&T aims to immediately bring a new level of discipline and world-class management to the organisation as the group looks to scale.
Hult GCC, which is a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) partner, stated it would transition immediately to 501(c) status—the tax-exempt label in America for ‘friends of’ organisations that promote community education and/or charitable work.
Their mission: to develop innovative implementation solutions to some of the world’s most pressing social challenges, and encourage breakthrough ideas from college and university students around the world.
The Hult GCC is currently the world’s largest case competition featuring thousands of students competing from over 100 countries. The group focuses not only on the stimulation of breakthrough ideas, but also emphasises the creation of real-world implementation solutions. Creators of the winning concepts are then rewarded with USD 1 million in funding to enable them to bring their ideas to reality. McNally added, “In today’s world, there are plenty of issues upon which to focus and even more ideas on how to solve them. Our goal is to encourage the young people of the world today to focus on those most critical, and provide them with a platform that fosters innovations and a model that converts a good idea to a scalable implementation pilot that can truly bring change.”
Initiatives over the years from the organisation have drawn interest from companies across diverse geographies and industries, non-profit organisations and entrepreneurs, increasing operational efficiency and financial results. Regional events are scheduled to be held in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai on 25 February 2012. This year, ‘global poverty’ is the underlying challenge area and contestants will focus on affordable means of providing educational tools, solar energy and simple housing as three key ‘pillars’ to help reduce both poverty and climate change on a global scale.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
