Matt Damon’s Water Charity To Receive Million-Dollar Donation

Business schools from around the world have been invited by Hult International Business School to compete in its second annual Global Case Challenge.

This year’s theme is on clean water, and this year’s recipient of a million-dollar donation to implement the winning team’s solution is Water.org, the organization co-founded by actor Matt Damon to provide communities in developing nations with access to clean water.

Hult has partnered with Bill Clinton's Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), whose goal is to link expertise with resources to provide sustainable solutions. One of the obstacles CGI recognizes is that “charitable organizations have grassroots knowledge of problems and know effective solutions to address them, but they have trouble getting to the next stage, overcoming local resistance and seeing the solutions implemented.”

This competition is Hult’s answer to that challenge. Some one hundred five-person teams of four students and a CGI member will each be given six hours to develop a practical solution to the “global clean water crisis”. The winning team will receive one million dollars to use towards the implementation of its plan, and the CGI commitment maker will receive PR assistance and 3,000 hours of consulting advice.

Regional finals of the competition will be held at Hult campuses in Boston, San Francisco, Dubai, London and Shanghai in March 2011. The five winners of the regional finals will present their proposals at the Global Final in New York in April. CGI, of which Hult is a member, will co-host the final when the donation and solution will be awarded to Water.org.