Students pick up prizes at national enterprise awards
STUDENTS from Sligo have won prizes at the national final of this year’s Student Enterprise Programme.
The finals of the Local Enterprise Office initiative were broadcast virtually on May 14 from Croke Park with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and special ambassador Derval O’Rourke speaking with host RTE’s Rick O’Shea, as students and teachers watched on from across the country. Supported by Local Enterprise Office Sligo, a team from Summerhill College won the overall winner award in the Intermediate Category. The winning students were Ben O’Loughlin, Patrick Donlon and Thibaud Gerard, who worked under the guidance of their teacher Dervilla Casey.
Their student enterprise was called T-Snappi, which produced cooking aprons with snap on/snap off tea towels.
Sligo also won another national award. Snap & Translate, the brainchild of Lorraine Dunleavy, a student from Coláiste Muire in Ballymote, won the runner-up award in the ‘My Entrepreneurial Journey’ Intermediate Category. Lorraine was supported by her teacher Siobhán O’Donnell.
There were 72 student enterprises competing in this year’s national final of what is 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, saw 29,000 students from almost 500 secondary schools across the country take part.
Praising the winning students and all those representing Sligo at the national finals at presentation ceremonies held at Summerhill College and Colaiste Muire, cathaoirleach of Sligo County Council Councillor Dara Mulvey said it was a proud day for student enterprise in Sligo.
He congratulated the students, their families and their teachers at both Summerhill College and Colaiste Muire on their awards. He also paid tribute to all the other finalists and participants from Sligo who he said “are impressive ambassadors for student enterprise in the county”.
John Reilly, head of enterprise with Sligo County Council, said that year-on-year the Student Enterprise Programme “continues to produce the very best of ingenuity and entrepreneurship among our secondary school students”. “It’s no surprise to see the challenges thrown up by the pandemic featuring in many of the businesses and the ongoing willingness for students to create businesses that not only sell services or products, but that help address ongoing issues in society.”
He said that many of these students go on to further develop their enterpreneuial skills.
“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 20-21 we will see some business leaders and global entrepreneurs of the future emerge,” he added.