Limerick’s Student Entrepreneurs prepare for virtual final

  • Limerick’s Student Entrepreneurs - Agrimech
Thomas Lillis & Ross O’ Shea from Villiers. Their company Agrimech is in the final of the Student Enterprise Programme 2020.

Some of Limerick’s most innovative and entrepreneurial students will be eagerly logging online at the end of the month for the National Final of the Student Enterprise Programme. For the first time since the programme began in 2003, the National Finals will take place online and the region will have four student enterprises involved on behalf of Local Enterprise Office Limerick.

The schools enterprises representing Limerick are:

Category

Team

Description

Junior

EZ Tie Close
Desmond College, Newcastle West

The team created a product that enables you to comfortably and easily close your neck tie discretely.

Intermediate

Comestibles
Coláiste Chiaráin, Croom

The team designed Zero waste, environmentally friendly edible serving bowls.

Senior

Agrimech
Villiers School, Limerick City

The team designed equipment that could be attached to a tractor/ loader that would push in silage in a single movement by driving along the feed barrier.

Jack Fitzgerald from Castletroy College, is a finalist in the My Entrepreneurial Journey Intermediate section category.

Having originally been scheduled to take place in Croke Park on the 1st May, the Local Enterprise Office run awards, will be announced virtually at the end of the month via live stream on the Student Enterprise Programmes Facebook and YouTube channels.

Limerick has a proud tradition on the Student Entrepreneur Programme through the Limerick Local Enterprise Office, with 24 Secondary Schools from Limerick entering the competition this year.

The students and teachers from across the country will watch along online to the event hosted by RTE’s Rick O’Shea and will be joined during the ceremony by previous winners and Student Entrepreneur Programme Ambassador, Josh Van Der Flier. The rugby star previously took part in the initiative when he was a student at Wesley College in Dublin.

The Finalists have been announced this year with a record number of 85 student enterprises competing in Ireland’s largest entrepreneurship programme for second level students. The initiative funded by the Government through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country, close to 26,000 students from almost 500 secondary schools across the country take part.

Some of the finalists this year include an alarm that helps wake small children who can sleep through regular high frequency alarms, eco-friendly products such as beeswax film, an alternative to clingfilm, a bottle stopper to help prevent drinks tampering, germination balls that can be thrown on soil to help generate new wildlife, and stress hampers filled with stress relieving products. 

The National Final students are competing across three categories, Junior, Intermediate and Senior and judging is ongoing virtually with the finalists nationwide via electronic submissions. Each student enterprise is challenged with creating, setting up and running their own business, which must show sales of their service or product. The judging panel includes business owners and representatives from enterprise agencies and associated bodies.

This year’s Programme also saw two new pilot competitions across the Junior, Intermediate and Senior categories. The first, the My Entrepreneurial Journey pilot was run in the Junior and Intermediate cycle and open to any students involved in wider competition.  It required them to map out the life of a successful entrepreneur and how that could be achieved.

In the Senior category there was a new Go Green: Be Sustainable Creative Business Competition. In this new pilot competition, students could push their most innovative business ideas via a video pitch, without having to produce a product or service and was open to all senior students taking part in the wider competition.

Chair of the Enterprise Education Committee with the Local Enterprise Offices, Michael Nevin said: “As a programme we are lucky in that much of the work that students were doing in relation to their Student Enterprises was done well before this pandemic broke out. So there is no reduction in the quality of entries, if anything we have bigger final this year and some outstanding entries. Looking through the Finalists, you can see that students are more conscientious than ever when it comes to solving problems they see in everyday life, affecting the environment and the people around them.  It’s encouraging to see the focus that the next generation are putting on making the world a better place and irrespective of who wins, we will see some great student businesses coming from this.”

Since 2003, over 200,000 students have taken part in the Student Enterprise Programme. Last year again there was great variety across the entries, and the winners.  In the Junior category, Specrest from Fingal in Dublin designed a 3D printed biodegradable clip that will secure glasses on clothing.  Smooth Remove from North Cork, a device for shoe removal won in the Senior category while Crios Mhadra from Kerry, a dog safety harness for car travel took home the Intermediate prize. 

Full details of all this year’s 85 national finalists are available on the Student Enterprise Programme website at www.StudentEnterprise.ie.

See More