Student Innovation Award winners announced

Author: Press Office

Date Article Written Monday 1st March 2010

First prize has been awarded to three students, Mary Burke from Williamstown, Co Galway, Maria Coll from Ballinlough, Co Roscommon, and Michelle Kilcoyne from Castlebar, Co Mayo, for their educational software product called “Or”.  They are currently in the second year of a BA in Accountancy and Financial Management (L7). They won €1,000 cash, incubation space in the Innovation Centre for two months and mentoring from The Discovery Partnership, a client company in the GMIT Castlebar Innovation Centre. 

Second prize was awarded to Richard Carr from Castlebar, Co Mayo, for his project called “Bluetooth Proximity Marketing”. Richard is a fourth year student on the BSc (Hons) in Computer Services Management (L8). He won €500.

Third prize went to Damien Daly and Daniel O Morche both from Castlebar, Co Mayo, who are fourth year students on the BA (Hons) in Outdoor Education (L8). They won €300. Fourth prize went to Gareth Gargan from Belcarra, Castlebar, Co Mayo, and Alan Dowling from Stradbally, Co Laois, who are also studying a BA (Hons) in Outdoor Education (L8), winning €100. All prizes were sponsored by Shell Ireland for the competition. 

The GMIT Innovation Awards competition gives students at the Castlebar campus a unique opportunity to test their creative business ideas. The competition is now in its fourth year.

The winners were presented with their awards at a reception in the IiBC on Thursday 25th February. Each group/individual had submitted a Business Plan and were interviewed throughout the day by a panel of judges comprising Alan Mee, Shell Ireland, Robert Grealis, Consulting Partner with The Discovery Partnership & former CEO of Knock Airport, and Brian Mulhern, Lecturer in Computing at GMIT, Castlebar.

Maria Staunton, IiBC Manager, commended the finalists for their hard work and commitment: “All finalists have shown great aspirations to be the entrepreneurs that we will read about in the future. In the current economic climate it is vitally important that we encourage young people to look at setting up their own businesses.”

“Innovation and entrepreneurialism are vital to creating future economic growth, equipping young people with the knowledge and confidence to set up their own business and work for themselves.  It is about nurturing and developing entrepreneurial thinking in young people so that we will have a generation of well informed business people”. 

Robert Grealis, Consulting Partner with The Discovery Partnership congratulated all the participants and was impressed with the diverse range of innovative ideas presented by the finalists. “The energy and creativity of the projects was refreshing and I am certain we will see commercial businesses develop from this initiative”.