Eileen Reidy from Our Lady’s Bower, Athlone, will attend the Euro Science Open Forum 2012 in the Convention Centre Dublin, next Friday July 13. Earlier this year, Eileen participated in Agri Aware’s Green Dragon Secondary Schools Innovation Challenge where her idea of helping seeds to grow in drought conditions using hydrogel polymers (gel in which water is the main dispersion medium ) won her the top prize of a €7,000 development fund. Along with this prize fund, Eileen was also awarded the opportunity to showcase her idea at this year’s Euro Science Open Forum, a week-long event that will be attended by over 6,000 scientists, business leaders, and government officials from across Europe.
Now in its third year, the Green Dragon Secondary School Innovation Challenge is an Agri Aware initiative supported by Bord Bia, AIB Bank, and FBD. The initiative provides students with the opportunity to bring their innovative idea in the areas of agriculture, food, environment, or health and safety from concept stage through to development of business and marketing plans. Teagasc support the Euro Science Open Forum element of the challenge and Eileen will be present at the Teagasc stand on July 13, meeting with visitors to the Teagasc exhibit and informing people about their Green Dragon experience.
Commenting on the upcoming event, Agri Aware chairman Bernard Donohue said, “This is a fantastic opportunity for these young people to showcase the great ideas that they have and to meet with some very interesting people. Agri Aware is delighted that these Green Dragon winners will be able to highlight the talent and innovation skills amongst our young people to a larger European audience.”
The ESOF is an opportunity to platform the creativity and innovativeness of Irish students to European scientists, and Eileen is sure to prove herself a great representative for Ireland.
