Re-Dress has been announced as the winners of the PwC Africa Hackathon.
Everything D&I has partnered up with PwC (UK) Multicultural Business Network and representatives from Africa to create a hackathon aimed for students from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds. The Hackathon was a two-day virtual event which ran from the 31st of March until the 1st of April 2021.
20 teams consisting of postgraduate and undergraduate students from 10 universities have participated in this year’s challenge to conduct a pitch on a business idea which should tackle a sustainable issue from the UNDP list.
The event was filled with opportunities to network, gain insights from number of speakers who provided their personal and professional experiences and other workshops delivered by both PwC Africa and PwC UK.
On the first day, students were presented with the challenge and worked together to create a business pitch tackling a sustainability issue. On the second day, each team presented their ideas to PwC partners and only 5 teams were shortlisted as the finalists.
The winning team from Queen Mary which consisted of alumni Benvindo Paulo, Shuheb Miah, Eleni Sophia from SBM and our current student Abdullah Sheikh from SEF. They have come up with Re-Dress a customer centric app which aimed to tackle the issue of tons of clothing which ends up in landfills increasing the emission of greenhouse gasses. Their goal was to encourage young people to recycle their clothes fashionably.
The prize for the winning team was 3 months mentoring scheme which aims at supporting the students with their career development. Sophia, one of the founders of Re-Dress, said: “We're all delighted to have met and we're looking forward to working together in our upcoming PWC mentoring sessions we won!”.
The program also had many benefits for the participants such as improving critical thinking, research skills, commercial awareness, presentation skills, collaboration and creativity and innovation. Shuheb Miah, co-founder of Re-Dress, said: “The experience has taught me what it means to work under pressure especially towards an aspect that could change lives for the better, regarding the topic of sustainability. This truly put into perspective the needs of those that expect so much in such little time to deliver regarding environmental sustainability and that will always be a life lesson for me going forward.”
One of the organizers and judges of the competition Antonella Maccianti said: “The Re-Dress team worked extremely well together even though that was their first-time meeting, presented very well and they tackled the issue of clothes waste through an innovative idea that was also monetized which in my opinion was the key. “