Trophies presented to enterprise winners
WINNERS of County Wicklow’s Student Enterprise Programme were recently presented with their trophies.
Due to Covid restrictions, the final in Wicklow took place virtually after the schools closed in March. As a result, the Local Enterprise Office in Wicklow (LEO) was only recently able to present the trophies to the winners after schools re-opened.
LEO Head of Enterprise, Vibeke Delahunt and Business Advisor Annette Rowsome were delighted to present the trophies to the winning teams.
Ms Delahunt said; ‘We would like to congratulate the winners of the competition last year, but also wish to recognize all the students that participated. This is a very important programme to the Local Enterprise Office as it develops entrepreneurial skills in our young people and we very much look forward to having many of them as clients in the future when they start their own business’.
The winners in the senior category were Maurice Tobin and Cian O’Tuama from Colaiste Bhride Carnew. The runners up in the senior category were Sophie Nuzum and Nicole Yau of St Mary’s College Arklow and Jeremiah Scott and Sean Lundy of Colaiste Craobh Abhann.
The winner in the intermediate category was Dale Kearney of Avondale CC. The winners of the junior category were Hugh Donohue and Conor McConnell from Colaiste Craobh Abhann, Kilcoole.
Meanwhile, student entrepreneurs across Wicklow have begun their journey for this year’s Student Enterprise Programme and are already firmly focused on next year’s National Final. This year’s programme will be delivered differently given the current restrictions across the country, and the final, which will take place on Friday May 14, 2021, will be a virtual one.
The students, who will compete across three categories of junior, intermediate and senior, will face a virtual judging process which will include 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.
This is 18th year of Ireland’s largest secondary school entrepreneurship programme and over 200,000 students have taken part since its inception.
The programme will also include two additional categories that students can enter. These are the ‘Most Creative Business Idea’ video competition for the
senior category and the ‘My Entrepreneurial Journey’ category for the junior and intermediate categories.
The schools from Wicklow taking part this year are as follows: Avondale CC; CBS Arklow; Coláiste Bhríde; Coláiste Chill Mhantáin; Coláiste Chraobh Abhann; Dominican College; East Glendalough School; Gaelcholáiste Na Mara; Scoil Chonglais; Glenart College; Loreto SS; St Gerard’s College St Kevin’s CC; St Kilian’s CS; St Mary’s College; Templecarrig
School; Greystones CC; and St David’s SS.
Over 1,200 students from 19 secondary schools in Wicklow took part in last year’s Programme. The enterprise education initiative is funded by the Government through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country.
Looking forward to this year’s programme, Ms Rowsome said: ’ These are unprecedented times for our students and this year’s
competition is giving them the opportunity to create businesses that can make an impact in the current real world scenario. We are encouraging students to come up with business ideas that are adapted to the existing enterprise challenges and that are sustainable in today’s economic climate.
‘With this in mind the programme has changed and even though the way it is being delivered (which is mainly online), is different, the students will still be able to work together in their school setting to develop their businesses. This will be our most challenging year to date in the Student Enterprise Programme’s history, but it will be exciting to see what new world businesses our students bring to the table.’
The Student Enterprise Programme also has new range of online resources for 2020/2021 at www.StudentEnterprise.ie, which will feature regular blogs and houses a full range of Student Enterprise resources for students and teachers.