Digital technology conquers our life in a rapidly expanding scale. The social entrepreneurship applies innovative design to develop a stronger relationship between business making and social awareness. To nurture a new wave of future business minds, a wide variety of international symposia and competitions were founded, for instance, the Hult Prize Foundation. This Foundation targets the implementation of sustainable start-up enterprises, whose annual winners can turn their ideas into reality with the support of seed fund. In the following story, a prize winner of last year, Sagar Gupta (BEng (CS)), shares with us his experience and insights behind the accomplishment.

“The experience was honestly really exciting and challenging at the same time. We went through multiple rounds as a team, starting from the campus round at HKU, to the Global Accelerator in the UK,” Sagar explained the rationales behind all those innovative ideas, he did not forget to highlight the cooperation among teammates. Sagar’s team, called “EmployMe”, channelled teammates’ creative inputs in technology, sales and social work into solving the unemployment of blue-collar workers in developing countries, such as India, his origin.

"It’s about realizing what steps you can take today to make the society a little better, and then working towards that in your way."

In connection with their expertise, the team designed a novel SMS Chabot to find the most suitable jobs for the workers based on their skills and experience. But the vision of this future social entrepreneur did not converge only on the features of the design, but also real-life application and future business prospect, “There are millions of blue-collar workers in India unemployed. With the help of the seed fund, we would not only be able to get them a job but also provide them with vocational training and up-skilling.” We can realise how his open and insightful mind has granted him access to such a notable win.

Some people say achieving sustainable development nowadays face a lot more obstacles than before, but Sagar tends to suggest another stream of interpretation on the community effort, “You don't need to start a business to make a social impact. It’s about realizing what steps you can take today to make the society a little better, and then working towards that in your way … If [a social entrepreneur] remains empathetic, driven and resilient to solve them, he/she will succeed.”

Apart from the prize, Sagar inclines to treasure the marketing skills and inspirations from the leading mentors and entrepreneurs from around the globe. This accomplishment is simply the beginning of his career. But we are very sure that he will carry on the long journey, with great courage and endeavour. 

Written by:
Amadeus Cheung
Year 3, Faculty of Law
April 2020