Bill Clinton awards $1M to refugee ridesharing startup – By Jade Scipioni (foxbusiness.com) / Sept 17 2017
Former President Bill Clinton awarded $1 million in seed funding to four Pakistani-American students who created a ridesharing rickshaw startup service to help refugees—especially women—travel to major points of interest in Pakistan.
The startup, called Roshini Rides, was developed by Rutgers University students who were participating in the 2017 Hult Prize Foundation competition that showcases more than 10,000 student volunteers in more than 500 on-campus university programs around the world. This year’s challenge, which was issued by Clinton himself, was to find a way to restore human dignity and rights to millions of displaced people by 2022.
“This year’s topic is particularly important because we have 65 million displaced people in the world, the largest number since World War II,” Clinton said during a ceremony at the United Nations on Saturday.
Clinton added that climate change continues to displace millions of people a year since 2008, citing recent Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which slammed Texas and Florida respectively, and Hurricane Jose, which currently poses a threat to the East Coast of the U.S.
“This total of involuntary migration is enormous,” the former president said. “It has destroyed communities and families and livelihoods and has caused enormous suffering. Thank God [it] only killed a small number of people, but there is a staggering amount of damage. Now we all have to rebuild. So all of you dealing with refugee issues are doing more than people with more money and more governmental power should be doing more of. I think it’s important to recognize that despite all the bad news, there is good news.”
Roshni Rides, which uses solar-powered rickshaws to take passengers to major points of interest such as schools, hospitals and marketplaces using ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft, told FOX Business that while they’ve already secured partnerships and created a brand and presence in Orangi Town, Pakistan, they plan to use the Hult capital to roll out their plan faster.
PB/TK – POTUS Billy donates $1 million to a ride-sharing solar powered rickshaw startup in Pakistan for refugees to get from place to place? Well that’s probably a good thing because if that were in the US, that rickshaw idea would either be used to get people from one bar to another or for tourists to go from one attraction to another
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