A busy and exciting year of student entrepreneurial activity culminated with UL Student Entrepreneur of the Year 2024 competition sponsored by the generosity of UL Foundation, Platt Reilly and Ingenium Training & Consulting and supported by the Kemmy Business School and Student Life. This competition inspires students to discover their entrepreneurial spirit and turn ideas into business opportunities with commercial and or social potential. It showcases what is possible when driven entrepreneurial minds combine their academic pursuits with innovative thinking and entrepreneurial spirit. The competition is open to students across all disciplines and years and with ideas at various stages of development.
This year the event took place over 2 days. On the first day students met and engaged in team formation, idea generation and market validation workshops and obtained mentoring from Kemmy Business School faculty, graduate entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs from the region.
The second day commenced with student teams meeting the judges who interviewed the entrants about their idea before participating in a pitching competition where participants pitched their ideas to the judges, invited guests and students. The UL Student Entrepreneur of the Year was judged across several criteria including innovativeness of the idea, problem solution fit, market validation, professionalism/ investability, and competitive advantage.
Project ideas expanded across a range of areas such as use of AI in learning, food and healthcare, recycling and sustainability, construction and professional services. The judging panel consisted of Derek Platt (Platt Reilly), Dr James Ring (Ingenium Training), Dr Yvonne Costin (KBS), Ben Kiely (UL Consulting and Entrepreneurship Society) and Dr Briga Hynes (KBS).
The overall winner of this year’s competition is Zack Daly and Justyna Przyborska for Little Footprints, an online sustainable rental website for baby/children’s equipment.
Second prize was awarded to Cillian Fahy and Tom O’Flaherty for Léargas. This is an entrepreneurial support hub providing a range of services for early stage and student entrepreneurs to include a learning hub, networking platform, AI-Powered Whitepaper Generator, interactive business model canvas builder and list of organisations providing assistance to start ups.
Third place went to Thomas Joyce and Dara Heaphy with Laochra a text-based AI game in Gaeilge to encourage fun learning of the Irish language.
The fourth prize was secured by Summar Srujith and Harshit Bothra for Blaze an online debit card operating an affiliate model for saving and redemption on products and services linked to the influencer market.
Initiatives such as the Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award serve as a powerful inspiration for future student entrepreneurs. It can ignite a spark of creativity and ambition in those who might not have considered entrepreneurship as a viable career path previously. Additionally, it can foster a supportive ecosystem within the university where students feel encouraged to collaborate, share ideas, and support each other’s entrepreneurial journeys and create meaningful impact through entrepreneurship.
Further information on the Foundation Awards can be obtained from Ben Fitzgerald Kiely at kiely.ben@ul.ie or Briga Hynes at Briga.Hynes@ul.ie