Hult Prize Founder: Why Business is Tapping the Crowd

Ahmad Ashkar, CEO and Founder of the Hult Prize is an experienced voice in the arena of Crowdsourcing and Competition.  Ashkar is a businessman who did more than envision an idea, he implemented a crowdsourced competition to tackle complex, global social issues.

Ashkar speaks candidly on how businesses can spark disruptive and powerful ideas to benefit their company, and offers guidelines to launch an engaging competition. Equally candid is a warning that to effectively harness the power of the crowd, you have to engage it carefully. Ashkar speaks from experience: over the past four years, he and his team have developed a well-defined set of principles that guide the annual Hult Prize “challenge.”

The article appeared yesterday on HBR blog:

It’s no secret that people in business are turning to the crowd to solve their toughest challenges. Well-known sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo allow people to raise money for new projects. Design platforms like Crowdspring and 99designs give people the tools needed to crowdsource graphic design ideas and feedback.

At the Hult Prize — a start-up accelerator that challenges Millennials to develop innovative social enterprises to solve our world’s most pressing issues (and rewards the top team with $1,000,000 in start-up capital) — we’ve learned that the crowd can also offer an unorthodox solution in developing innovative and disruptive ideas, particularly ones focused on tackling complex, large-scale social issues. READ FULL ARTICLE

For more from Ahmad Ashkar on the Hult Prize Challenge, view the Bloomberg TV interview here:

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Mari Anixter is Managing Editor for Innovation Excellence. She is a communications professional, and recently relocated to the Boston area.