Congratulations! Statistical Science student and teammates win major international prize

Many congratulations go to our student Julia Vannaxay (BSc Statistics and Management for Business) and her teammates Lincoln Lee and Kisum Chan (BSc Biomedical Science) and Vannie Koay, (BSc Economics) who fought off stiff competition from 2,500 other teams, across over 100 universities worldwide, to win the Hult Prize and $1m funding from this global initiative to change the world for the better.

This year's Hult Prize challenge was to build a sustainable, scalable social enterprise that harnesses the power of energy to transform the lives of 10 million people. The winning idea (SunRice) does this by disrupting the traditional rice supply chain Southeast Asia. The team buys rice directly from farmers and dries it using renewable energy - avoiding the 30% spoilage rate farmers would normally incur when attempting to treat the rice themselves.

We couldn’t be prouder of Julia and our UCL students! Further information on their achievement is available from the UCL Innovation & Enterprise website.