Daineadh & ‘Tulipa’ take top prize at MTU Innovation Awards
Several local students were recently named amongst the winners at the Munster Technological University (MTU) Innovation Awards 2022. The annual competition awards those whose inventions and business ideas are judged most creative, novel, innovative and likely to succeed in the marketplace.
Lismore local, Daineadh Power, was amongst the award recipients with her team’s business idea, Tulipa.
Daineadh, who is in her third year of Biomedical Engineering, explained how Tulipa aims to innovate cervical exams.
“With cervical exams, sometimes you can’t get a clear view of the cervix with the tools that we have today. Particularly with women who have a high BMI or have had multiple children, you can’t get a clear view of the cervix. So we wanted to do something to change that and we invented a tool that anyone can use and that can give a clear view,” Daineadh said.
The team behind Tulipa represents a mix of students best suited to lending their experience to such an invention, incorporating medical engineers, mechanical engineers, as well as one business student.
'BLOWN AWAY BY IT ALL'
At the MTU Innovation Awards, the Tulipa team took home the Entrepreneurs of the Year title and the winners of the 'Best Exhibition' award, which Daineadh said they were
‘thrilled’ about.
“We were absolutely delighted to see that our hard work was recognised,” she enthused.
Being announced for the ‘ Best Exhibition’ first, the west Waterford student noted that the Tulipa team were ‘thrilled’, however when the second award came their way, the team were ‘shocked’.
“When we got the second award, we were all so shocked because there was such a high level of competition. Just to have all our hard work appreciated, we were so blown away by it all,” she said.
Over the summer, Daineadh says that she will be undertaking the Student Inc. programme at MTU, which is a student accelerator programme for those who want to turn their ideas into viable businesses, in the hopes of getting Tulipa set up as a business.
LOCAL INVOLVEMENT
Other local students who were involved with teams at the awards, include Glanmire’s Sam French with members of the start-up Honey Roam (developing a beehive monitoring device) and Oisín Finn of Fermoy with the start-up SensiChair (developing a chair to help children with sensory processing disorders).
Glanmire’s William Ichim was also competing with start-up Autoclip, who are developing an automatic clipless pedal for cyclists, along with local team members from start-up Ergowash, Evan Murphy of Carraig na bhFear and Oisín Bartley of Killavullen.