Since 2023, undergraduate students from UCL have taken part in the JA Entrepreneurship Competition, the world’s largest student entrepreneurship contest. In 2024, Leonard Lui (BSc Information Management for Business), Hop Hang Hui (BSc International Management), and Brian Au (Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering) competed in a team of 20 and won the Hong Kong round. They then went on to win the APAC round in 2025 and recently advanced to the global final on 04 March.
JA is an organisation that teaches young entrepreneurs real‑world business skills to help prepare them for future careers. The first‑place teams from each of JA’s six annual company competitions are entered into the global final, where the winners will receive awards, educational opportunities, and a $15,000 prize.
Representing the entire Asia Pacific, Leonard, Hop Hang, Brian and their team have competed with their venture, Zester, a Hong Kong‑based social enterprise founded in 2023 that now manages a team of 20. Zester delivers sustainability education to schools and multinational corporations and has reached more than 30,000 people to date.
The team first developed card games designed to generate quick solutions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), later scaling these into SDG‑focused workshops for high schools and corporations. Zester has also developed a digital platform, Zestlabs, that virtualises their offerings and is currently being implemented in schools across the APAC region. So far, Zestlabs has amassed 10,000 users.
Most recently, the organisation launched the “SDG Innovation League” in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong and Ocean Park. This has since become Hong Kong’s largest project‑based sustainability competition, supported by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
At the world championship of the JA Entrepreneurship Competition, Zester presented their work to a judging panel that included Ralph De La Vega, former CEO of AT&T. Zester finished the competition in the top six student companies out of a total of 32,000 student companies and 50,000 participants.
