In response to a call to action by President Bill Clinton for students to help address the global food crisis, five Ashesi students have teamed up to propose a social enterprise that will help save wasted food and provide it to underprivileged families at a highly reduced cost. 
The student team, made up Adwoa Boateng ‘13, Francis Okunade ‘13, Sidney Koranteng ‘13, Philip Boye-Doku ‘13, and Victoria Tabi ‘13, were among the 5 finalists (from over 40 university teams) at this year’s Hult Prize Regional competition in Dubai. The Hult Prize, in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, allows student teams to compete in five cities around the world for a chance to secure USD 1 million in start-up funding to launch a sustainable social venture.
The theme of the 2013 Hult Prize is global food security and is focused on how to get safe, sufficient, affordable and easily accessible food to people who live in urban slums.
5 Finalist Hult Prize Dubai -Rotterdam school of mgmt , Ashesi Univ.,ESADE Business School, Univ. of Dhaka ,NYC Univ of Abu Dhabi
— Hult Prize (@hultprize) March 2, 2013
Food Alert, the team’s social enterprise, will work divert edible food that would have been wasted (due to practices of retailers, consumers and inefficiencies in the farming system) to urban slum dwellers in the cities of the world. Food Alert would form strategic partnerships with existing slum dwellers through micro franchises in slums that would revolve around the concept of community, health and accountability.
(Click here to watch a Food Alert introduction)
“Living in Ghana, and experiencing its slums, has allowed us to really understand the dynamics of the food crisis,” says Adwoa, leader of the student team. ”We have spent a lot of time interacting with residents of deprived areas, and Food Alert was built around feedback we received, and our own experiences with food practices in urban slums.”
The team has entered the enterprise in the Hult Prize’s online competition, and are aiming to join the regional winners of the Hult Prize from Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai, to compete for USD1,000,000 in start-up funding to launch their social venture.
Interested in helping the team? You can vote them into the final by:
a. Click here to visit the Hult Prize online portal (Facebook)
b. Scroll down the page/ Click "Vote and Watch" after which you would see a list of videos.
c. Search for 'Food Alert' by Team Ashesi
d. VOTE (pink button), and then SHARE (orange button) and let others know about Food Alert!