Alumni news
Business School graduate wins Global Peer-Leader Award for farming financial app ‘Agrilink’
By: Gala Orsborn
Last updated: Wednesday, 21 September 2022
Husain Alogaily. Winner of the Global Peer-Leader Award
Business School recent graduate Husain Alogaily (BA Economics and International Development), has won the Global Peer-Leader Award at the Global Enterprise Experience for designing a financial app proposal for farmers in Africa. He surpassed 1100 emerging leaders from 230 universities to win the Award.
The Global Enterprise Experience (GEE) is an online action-learning experience that develops skills in peer-leadership, cross-cultural management, social entrepreneurship, and global citizenship.
Students were placed on a global virtual team with eight colleagues from diverse nations. The teams had three weeks to develop a six-page business concept proposal for a profitable venture that addresses a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal using limited capital.
Husain led his team of eight entrepreneurs from across the globe to create business proposal ‘Agrilink’, a blockchain-based app helping smallholder farmers in the African communities to obtain financial support by offering an online loan disbursement and repayment service, eliminating transport costs.
The app also provides farmers with an encrypted storage facility for transactions which enables financial institutions to check creditworthiness of applicants, ensuring trust in their values. In addition to this, Agrilink allows farmers to store excess crops as collateral by providing information on crop quality by way of receipts, a service not previously available to smallholder farmers.
Husain was highly regarded by his team and was a powerhouse in working together to produce a very high-quality proposal.. The ceremony was held in June 2022 at New Zealand’s Parliament in Wellington.
On receiving the award, Husain said:
“I want to contribute to ending hunger so that no child ever has to go to sleep hungry and no parent has to worry about whether or not they will be able to put food on the table for their families.
“To win such a competition competing against so many amazing emerging leaders has really encouraged me, not only building my confidence but also providing me with an incredible achievement to put on my resume. It was also a massive honour to represent the Business School and University.”
Deb Gilbertson, Director of Global Enterprise Experience said:
“Husain was the finest peer-leader out of 1100 emerging leaders who participated in the GEE from 72 countries. He stepped up to lead, his team loved him, and jointly they produced an outstanding proposal that uses business to make out world a better place.”
To date, students from 830 universities in 135 countries have participated in the Global Peer-Leader Award, joining from a variety of courses such as international business, business communications, peace studies, entrepreneurship, innovation, international marketing, leadership, and cross-cultural management.
The programme has also won a United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Intercultural Innovation Award for its global impact.