Finbarr Maguire and David Ronan of PurOrigin, with their NovaUCD 2012 start-up award
PurOrigin, a new start-up that’s focusing on designing energy-efficient appliances for the home, has won the 2012 start-up award at NovaUCD for its first product, a clothes dryer that aims to consume less energy than conventional clothes dryers.
The duo behind PurOrigin are Finbarr Maguire and David Ronan. They have just completed master of engineering degrees in energy systems at UCD.
As well as winning the overall NovaUCD start-up award for 2012, PurOrigin won the NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme and scooped a €20,000 prize fund. As part of the package, PurOrigin will also avail of six months’ free desk space at NovaUCD.
Maguire’s and Ronan’s first innovation is PurDry, a new type of energy-efficient clothes dryer. According to the company, the clothes dryer consumes less energy, has lower running costs and produces lower CO2 emissions. The dryer does not require plumbing or installation and has been designed to be lightweight and compact.
Between them, Maguire and Ronan have more than 15 years of industrial experience in designing and developing products for the electrical, biomedical, automotive and pharmaceutical industries.
In addition to PurOrigin, runner-up prizes went to EgoNav Analytics and Yokie, both of which will get six months of free desk space at NovaUCD and prize packages worth €5,000 and €3,000 respectively.
EgoNav Analytics has developed a visual analytics system for identifying and highlighting real-time fraud. Meanwhile, Yokie is a people-powered search and discovery engine that harnesses the content on real-time social networks such as Twitter.
The NovaUCD Campus Company Development Programme, which is supported by Enterprise Ireland, has been running since 1996. Over 190 new ventures have completed the programme, which is run at NovaUCD over nine months and aims to help academics and researchers at UCD to set up new high-tech ventures to commercialise their research.
