UNPHU holds 2023 On Campus Program HULT PRIZE Local Competition

Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña, through its UNPHU Emprende Center, held the HULT PRIZE 2023 On Campus Program Local Competition. This program consists of an international university competition in which university students from more than 120 countries participate each year, working to create new high-impact companies that address the call to action in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

This year, students were challenged to redesign the fashion industry, developing social and innovative projects that positively impact the industry’s value chain, to make it more sustainable, proposing solutions to the main problems of the industry. The competition at the local level involved 6 teams of students from different university careers such as Chemical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Marketing and Architecture. Participants were introducing their PITCH to students, teachers, and school coordinators.

The jury team was made up of Mr. Rubí Bretón, director of UNPHU Emprende, Mipymes Center UNPHU, and the SIV Network; of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Mipymes (MICM), Mr. Armando Tejeda, entrepreneurship articulator; Ms. Ancris Lied, Head of Standards at Banco BHD and Mr. José Checo, director of Emprendemype. They oversaw evaluating each project to choose a winning team to represent the university in the regional phase, after going through the official Hult Prize team filter.

The team selected was StarStarch, composed by students Raúl Alcibíades Pérez Mena, Yamel Méndez Bernal and Briellydalia García Sanquintín, who developed an industrial project dedicated to the production of organic cassava resin for fabric dye, focused on textile free zone industries. It seeks to reduce production costs and environmental impacts of manufacturing processes.

The students of each team benefited from a training program given by advisers of the UNPHU Mipymes Center, in which four workshops were addressed in Business Model, Value Proposal, Finance for Projects and PITCH, with a total of 8 hours for the preparation of this competition. 

This event was held last Friday, February 24, 2023, at 4:00 p.m., in the Multipurpose Hall of Building 3.