2025 Hult Prize Campus Qualifier Competition
On February 21, 2025, five student teams from Syracuse University competed at Syracuse University Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad in the 2025 Hult Prize campus qualifier for a chance to pitch at the Hult Prize national qualifier at the Hult International Business School in Boston on March 21, 2025. Winners of the national round then move on to a digital incubator stage where they prepare for the Global Accelerator competition in London over the summer.
Competing in the Syracuse University campus qualifiers were: Alie Savane ’25 (College of Arts & Sciences), founder of Beta Kola; Carolina Aguayo Plá ’28 (School of Information Studies and Martin J. Whitman School of Management), founder of Frutecho; Anthony H. Smith Jr. G’25 (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications), Bryson Carter G’25 (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications), Asha Breedlove G’25 (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications) and Stacey Collier G’25 (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications), founders of HBeatzCU; Aidan Turner ’25 (School of Architecture), Lucas d’Oelsnitz ’26 (Martin J. Whitman School of Management), Carolyn Fernandes ’25 (College of Visual and Performing Arts) and Aphrodite Gioulekas ’25 (College of Visual and Performing Arts), founders of Solace; and Lindy Truitt ’25 (College of Visual and Performing Arts) and Anjaneya Padwal G’25 (School of Information Studies), founders of SipSafe+.
The Hult Prize is a prestigious global business competition started by a partnership between the Hult Business School and the United Nations Foundation. The competition inspires student entrepreneurs to solve the world’s biggest challenges through innovative social enterprises with positive global impact. Through their year-long competition and since its inception, over 1 million young people from 120+ countries have participated in their programs, working to create high-impact startups that address the annual challenge in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Finalists pitch their businesses to a panel of expert judges, and the winning team receives $1M USD in funding to make their idea a reality.
Lindy Truitt and Anjaneya Padwal, founders of SipSafe+, won the Syracuse University campus qualifier and moved on to compete at the nationals in Boston. Although they did not move on to the final round, they received rave reviews from the judges for both their idea and pitch.
This year’s Hult Prize Competition qualifier was organized by Aditee Malviya G’25 (College of Engineering and Computer Science).
About Syracuse University Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad
The Blackstone LaunchPad is Syracuse University’s innovation hub, connecting the campus resource-rich ecosystem with a global network that provides support for aspiring entrepreneurs, inventors and creators. The program serves faculty, staff, students and recent alumni across all disciplines who are interested in entrepreneurship, venture creation and innovation careers. The program supports a key pillar of Syracuse University’s academic strategic plan to give students experiential opportunities that help prepare them to be trailblazers in an entrepreneurial world.