My trip to Lagos state, 11 years after I left for Oyo state. On what purpose? Hult prizes 🥇🏆!
The Hult prize is a competition for start-ups hosted in Lagos on the Saturday 3rd May, 2025. I left Abeokuta on Friday so as to be at the venue as early as possible. The program was set to start by 9:00 AM, even if I travel by train, I won't meet up.
The venue was University of Lagos but due to my inability to check thoroughly, I travelled down to Lagos State University. Thank God I went there a day before and for checking the mail again while I was preparing to sleep.
The next morning, I left home early, around 7:30 since we were told to be seated by 8:30 and LASU are UNILAG not too far from each other (fortunately).
I entered UNILAG around 8:20. Now it's time to move to the venue "Design studio". This is my first time in UNILAG so I definitely need to ask students around. After validating a response from two different individuals, I moved down to "Engineering Design Studio" as it happens to be the most popular"design studio" in UNILAG. Meanwhile, we were meant to be at the other "design studio". I met with some other guys that we later journey back to the other "design studio", FSS Design studio.
Fast forward, we registered and the program started. I was still waiting for my other teammates to come from Oyo state, Ibadan precisely. They had delays with their train. They came, we pitched and everything went well.
At the National level, only 6 teams were to be selected out of 41 contestants. Unfortunately, Mind-Aid wasn't able to be part of the top 6. Other teams were given the opportunity to leave because it's evening already while the top 6 will re-pitch in the front of all the judges.
Me and my teammates took pictures and left for our respective places. We left around 5 PM. Around 6:30, we received a message from the general Hult group that Mind-Aid attention is needed, meanwhile, we left already. Logically, I'd say we took 7 positions to be opportuned to have a call back. Nothing we could. The only option was to go back and re-pitch which isn't possible.
Anyways, there's always a silver lining. We're actively and relentlessly running more research, plus, a lot was being learnt from the panel section.
Less I forgot, I won a jotter from Growth padi and a top from Jendz...
