Hult Prize 2014 Enters its Final Stages and Other MBA News Snippets

By Tim Dhoul Updated Aug 22, 2014

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Introduction
Final preparations for this year’s Hult Prize
Ross School of Business launches startup accelerator
Imperial College Business School praises online MBA’s progress

Addressing the issue of non-communicable-disease in Hult Prize 2014.

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Final preparations for this year’s Hult Prize

The six regional finalists in the reckoning for this year’s Hult Prize completed a one-month startup accelerator program in Boston this week.

The teams, representing the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, HEC Paris, ESADE Business School, Indian School of Business, and York University now have one month to finalize their startup ideas before presenting them to former US president, Bill Clinton.

The Hult Prize is a social entrepreneurship startup challenge, founded by an alumnus of Hult International Business School some five years ago.

Each year comes with a pressing social topic for teams to address – Hult Prize 2014 is focused on the problem of non-communicable-disease (NCD) in urban slums.

“Teams this year are presenting potentially groundbreaking solutions for the prevention and detection of cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, diabetes, and cancer,” innovation professor and leader of the Hult Prize’s startup accelerator, Dr. Hitendra Patel, said in a press release.

> Read an interview with the founder of the Hult Prize, Ahmad Ashkar.

Ross School of Business launches startup accelerator

The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business has announced the launch of startup accelerator program in conjunction with the university’s College of Engineering.

Focusing on that all-important phase between early-stage development and acquiring external investors, the startup accelerator plans to get up and running early in 2015.

The Desai Family Accelerator takes its name from Bharat Desai, an MBA alumnus of the Ross School, Bharat Desai and the founder of the global technology services company Syntel.

“This is a very personal cause for me, since I have first-hand experience navigating the challenging journey from student to entrepreneur,” the Ross School graduate said.

However, the startup accelerator aims to stand apart from other university initiatives in this vein by not limiting its remit to student entrepreneurs within the Ross School and the wider university community.

Imperial College Business School praises online MBA’s progress

Having launched its Online Global MBA earlier this year, the dean of Imperial College Business School spoke of the format’s progress in The Telegraph this week.

Imperial College Business School Dean and professor Anandalingam said that the influx of programs from key players in the business school has gone a long way to removing the stigma attached to the online MBA.

Anandalingam also noted that two of today’s leading online platforms, EdX and Coursera, are products of leading US business schools – Harvard, MIT and Stanford.

The Imperial College Business School dean praised the impact of technology in improving the online MBA student’s experience, arguing that it had: already shattered the barriers of geography, professional/life commitments and, in some cases, costs that once prevented hundreds of thousands of people every year from getting a world class education.”

For today’s prospective online MBA students Anandalingam advice is to look into what the program has to offer away from its teaching elements, such as career services and networking potential – something that is harder to deliver to an online MBA audience than to its campus equivalents.

Written by

Tim Dhoul

Tim is a writer with a background in consumer journalism and charity communications. He trained as a journalist in the UK and holds degrees in history (BA) and Latin American studies (MA).