Indian School of Business Team Wins Hult Prize 2014: MBA News

By Tim Dhoul Updated Sep 24, 2014

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Introduction
NanoHealth: the winning social venture addressing NCDs

Hult Prize 2014 won by team from Indian School of Business.

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Hult Prize 2014, the international social venture competition partnered with former US president, Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative, has been won by a team from the Indian School of Business (ISB).

At last night’s climax to the year-long competition that attracted 11,000 applications for the second year running, the Indian School of Business’ NanoHealth was announced the victor among six overall finalists – each of which had triumphed in Hult Prize 2014’s regional finals held in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai, Shanghai and São Paulo.

The University of Pennsylvania, MIT, HEC Paris, ESADE Business School and Schulich School of Business supplied Indian School of Business’ opponents in the final.

The majority of these teams were made up of either specialized master’s students or undergraduates, meaning that ISB’s PGP graduates (India’s MBA equivalent) were the only MBAs presenting a social venture to Bill Clinton last night.

NanoHealth: the winning social venture addressing NCDs

Each year, Bill Clinton sets the focus for the social venture competition with a specific challenge. For Hult Prize 2014, healthcare solutions to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) rife in the world’s urban slums were sought.

At the final, the competition from each social venture vying for the US$1 million in seed capital on offer was strong – HEC Paris tweeted Bill Clinton’s comment that he was “fascinated by the bees” being used to detect diabetes with 76% accuracy in the school’s Bee Healthy entry, for example.

However, it was Indian School of Business and NanoHealth’s ‘Doc-in-a-Box’ concept that came through. The project aims to create a network of health workers that are each equipped with a diagnostic tool which can take vitals and risk-profile patients for diabetes and hypertension.

Speaking at the time of its victory in the São Paulo regional final, NanoHealth’s Ashish Bondia emphasized the importance of early diagnosis and standardized treatment in combatting NCDs. A day before its victory in Hult Prize 2014, meanwhile, a partnership between the social venture and the Indian R&D firm, GVK Biosciences, was announced:

“We have a strong team and with the help of credible partners like GVK BIO, we are making progress every day. Our journey as a social enterprise began while attending the healthcare management program at the Indian School of Business and our alma mater has been very supportive and encouraging of us pursuing social entrepreneurship as a career option,” NanoHealth’s CEO Manish Ranjan said in a press release.

The Hult Prize was founded by an alumnus of Hult International Business School in 2009 - read an interview here.

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).