Egypt’s Azhar University wins Enactus World Cup 2020

12 / 09 / 2020

By Marwa Nassar - -

Egypt’s Azhar University won the Enactus World Cup 2020 during its first-time participation in the international contest.

The Azhar team has broken the ground by winning the $ 50,000 world award in the first time of its participation.

This is the second time for Egypt to snatch the Enactus World Cup . Cairo University copped the award in 2019.

Enactus is an international non-profit organization aiming to develop community which exists in 36 states. It started its activity in Egypt in 2004, encouraging students to innovate to serve their community.

Enactus Azhar University team managed to defeat teams from 56 Egyptian universities and 32 universities in various world countries, including Canada, US, Germany, India, China, Korea and Brazil.

The team’s winning project – Chito Shrimp – was turning shrimp shells into natural spices and fertilizers .

The idea of the project was first mooted when the team of Azhar University in the Upper Egypt city of Assiut focused on the problems facing Qaroun Lake – the largest natural lake in Egypt.

The team found out that the lake has been in charge of producing about 55 percent of the state’s output of shrimps and secured more than 4,000 jobs, but unfortunately the lake was affected by a host of problems, including waste, sanitation and isopod parasites.

These problems caused a sharp drop of the lake’s output to less than 10 percent, leaving behind thousands of fishermen jobless. Women started to work in peeling shrimps so they would work for long hours for few pennies. This has pushed children into labor market, depriving them of their rights of education.

About 800 women are capable of peeling around 8 tons of shrimps daily, leaving behind about 4 tons of waste which is either discharged into the lake or used as poultry feed.

The team decided to turn this useless waste into precious products.

These products included organic spices as Egypt imports about 7 tons of spices annually.

The spices were tested and accredited by the Trade and Industry Ministry, then the Azhar team started to show women how to make these spices and secured for them all needed equipment for the purpose.

Moreover, the team contracted with Amazon to ensure using e-commerce in selling the spices.

The efforts exerted by Enactus Azhar University team were not confined to this, however, they sought to help farmers to restore fertility of their lands which was affected by contaminated irrigation water, thus downing crops by over 50 percent.

The team found out that shrimp shells are rich with Chitosan – which is 100 percent natural fertilizer. In comparison with other chemical fertilizers, Chitosan contains three times nitrogen, seven times potassium and 12 times phosphorus – which are the most important elements for the soil.

Achievements of the project:

The project came up with high quality spices and produced organic fertilizers which are effective by 150 percent in comparison with widespread fertilizers.

Moreover, shrimp farms were expanded to realize self-sufficiency as the Qaroun Lake started to recover in addition to ensuring sustainability for expanding agricultural lands.

The project managed to generate jobs for more than 800 village households and, hence, helped 1,300 children to return to schools.

The project managed to produce masks for 5,000 doctors during the coronavirus period.

In light of the spreading of COVID19 and the severe shortage of medical supplies, especially masks. The team has developed a mask that can last with continuous periodic sterilization for a month and develop a filter that is changed every 12h with chitosan material.

It also produced an organic water filter.

The project’s revenues stood at $ 5.5 million in the first year.

The project represents a real attempt to raise the economic level of the village of Shakshuk in Fayoum governorate – where the project was implemented.

The project aimed also to improve living conditions of the villagers as well as the environmental life of the residents by manufacturing auto-market products that help build a sustainable, self-sufficient village.

These achievements have promoted the Azhar University to win the Enactus World Cup for this year.