Contest is helping to solve social problems

The Life: Executives from the Hult International Business School discuss how a global challenge can help spur business innovation.

Nick van der Walt, the executive director of Hult's campus in Dubai, centre, with the students. Pawan Singh / The National

Each year, Hult International Business School in Boston holds a contest in which university students from around the world offer solutions to a social problem, and the best idea is passed on to an organisation along with US$1 million (Dh3.67m) to turn the concept into reality. Nick van der Walt, the executive director of Hult's campus in Dubai, and Howard McNally, the chief executive of the Hult Global Case Challenge, discuss the importance of spurring innovation.

Mr McNally, how did innovation play a role when you were chief operating officer of the US telecommunications firm AT&T?

When I was at AT&T, I was responsible for the consumer long distance [landline] business, which frankly was going out of business. Email would replace multiple phone calls, and wireless calls replaced the landline. You could see the effect, and we were losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year and had no choice but to innovate to survive. I learned how hard it is to innovate in a large company.

Where do business owners here in the UAE start if they're trying to innovate?

Mr McNally: From the outside in. Engage people and learn how to look from the outside. Along the way you narrow it down to a place where you think you can have an impact on it quickly. But the most difficult thing to do is to objectively look at your business from the outside.

Your last Global Case Challenge focused on finding solutions to producing more clean-water infrastructure in developing countries, while the next one tackles poverty. What might students in the UAE get out of this contest?

Mr van der Walt: In the UAE, there has always been a call for more innovation, and this is a very practical way of making a contribution to that. Students who win have an opportunity to implement these ideas. The whole global competition is a good networking event, a good way to develop congeniality and put practical ideas to global use.

Numerous business contests are held annually in this region in an effort to boost innovation. Can competitions such as yours really help foster local talent?

Mr van der Walt: We have business leaders here, as judges, and the feedback we've had has been outstanding … We had senior-level people from Standard Chartered and Barclays Capital, and the business community is certainly buying into this.

What is the long-term benefit to students?

Mr van der Walt: In career terms, many organisations are looking for both excellence and people who can work in teams and across boundaries, and this highlights that component on a student's CV … [as teammates] from around the region and other countries like India or Hong Kong fly in here and are together when they present to the judges. At the same time, there's the aspect of social responsibility. The students who compete are ticking all the right boxes of career enhancement.

* Neil Parmar

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