Competition
EF Hult Prize 2027 student startup competition
Hult Prize Foundation
At a glance
- Deadline
- Open. No closing date published.
- Fee
- No fee to apply
- Who may apply
- Every team member is 18 or older by 28 February 2027
- Every team member is enrolled in a degree programme at a university or college
- You have a team of 2 to 4 students and a startup idea that serves one of the 17 SDGs
- Where
- Starts on your campus or online, then national rounds, a digital incubator, a global accelerator and global finals
A team of students can pitch a social business idea and compete for 1 million US dollars in seed investment.
The facts
- What you get
- One of the top 8 finalists gets 1 million US dollars in seed investment; the foundation takes an equity stake, typically 10 percent
- Where
- Starts on your campus or online, then national rounds, a digital incubator, a global accelerator and global finals
- How long
- September to September, in 5 rounds
Where you stand
This one is free. There is no fee to apply, and nobody should ask you for money at any point.
What they ask for
- Every team member is enrolled in a degree programme at a university or college
- Every team member is 18 or older by 28 February 2027
- You have a team of 2 to 4 students and a startup idea that serves one of the 17 SDGs
Get ready to apply
Built only from what this listing states. Tick as you go; the ticks stay on your phone and are not sent anywhere.
The application takes real work, by our reading.
1. What to get ready
It also names something beyond these; read their words below.
In their words: “Team name and member contacts to register. To enter: a 4-minute pitch video (YouTube link), a pitch deck (PDF) and a startup one-pager (PDF) on their template, all in English.”
2. Dates
- No closing date is stated.
- Openings with no closing date can close once they have enough people, so sooner is safer. Our advice
- On the date, the listing says: Deadlines set by each campus
Download checklist (.txt) Send to WhatsApp
The download is a small text file. You can read it later without data. It also lists each condition they set, so you can tick yourself against them. WhatsApp sends the same list to you, or to somebody helping you.
No CV yet? Make a plain one from your answers. Nothing you type is kept.
Tips for applying for a competition
General advice from us, the same for every competition. It is not what this organisation says; that is above.
- Read the rules and the judging criteria first, and write to them.
- Check who owns your work after you enter. The rules usually say.
- Submit a day early. Upload pages are often slow near a deadline.
If there is an interview or a test
- If there is a final or a pitch, practise out loud and time yourself.
All our tips and messages to copy. Practise answering, with nothing kept. Received an offer? Check whether it is real, then read before you say yes.
How to apply
You apply on Hult Prize Foundation's own website, not here. We never send an application for anybody and we never ask you for anything to pass on. Check their page for anything not shown here.
More like this, open now
How we checked this
This was opened and verified at Hult Prize Foundation's own website on 5 October 2026: it was real, still open, and open to people from African countries. If anything here is wrong, tell us.