Following on from their successes last year, students from Galway have taken multiple prizes at this year’s Student Enterprise Programme National Finals. The Finals of the Local Enterprise Office initiative took place on Friday in Croke Park.
Supported by Local Enterprise Office Galway, students won three awards including 2nd place in the Junior Category, Best Commercial Potential and The Smart Business Award. The winning students were: Orlaith Connors who came 2nd in the Junior Category, worked under the guidance of her teacher, Marie McNamara from Gort Community School. Her student enterprise was called: ‘Orlaith’s Derrybrien Honey’, selling 100% Organic, Raw, unblended honey, hand harvested sustainably from her own family farm in Derrybrien.
At Intermediate level, Rian Coyle, Jack Nolan, Charlie Carroll, Adam Forde and Aaron Keane from Coláiste Éinde in Salthill, won ‘Best Commercial Potential’ with their business ‘Galway Engravers’. They sell laser engraved, customisable wooden products made from sustainable sourced wood.
In the Senior Category, Tomas McGrath from Presentation College Athenry won the Smart Business Award. His business idea would remove the need for printed till receipts for customers, replaced by a QR code at the sales counter. These can be retrieved if required for product returns and will expire in line with a retailer’s returns policy.
There were 82 student businesses in contention across three main categories for the Final in what is Ireland’s largest entrepreneurship programme for second level students. The initiative, funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country, saw 25,000 students from almost 500 secondary schools across the country take part.
Neale Richmond, T.D., Minister of State for Employment Affairs and Retail Business, who took part in the ceremony, congratulated the students.
“With over 25,000 students taking part in this year’s programme, it is a huge achievement to make it to the Finals and shows a real flair for entrepreneurship. Some amazing businesses and entrepreneurs have come from this programme – the majority did not win any prizes but are still running successful businesses today. So, to those of you who won something today, a huge congratulations, but most importantly, to you all, this is the first step on the path, you are the entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future and everyone here today is excited to see what you do next.”
Head of Enterprise at LEO Galway, Valerie Kelly, said year on year, the Student Enterprise Programme continues to showcase the very best of Irish ingenuity and entrepreneurship amongst our secondary school students.
“This year produced a varied selection of businesses, from agricultural products and homemade gifts to products that were built on our unique ability to tell compelling stories. We see every year that the National Finals are not an end point for our student entrepreneurs, but a stepping stone on the next stage of their entrepreneurial journey. From our class of 22/23 we will see some business leaders and global entrepreneurs of the future emerge.”
