Dublin’s Paul Clarke wins coveted Young Scientist award (video)

10 Jan 2014

Paul Clarke winning his award, with BT Ireland CEO Colm O'Neill and Minister for Education and Skills Ruairi Quinn, TD

For his ground-breaking work in the field of cyclical graph theory, 17-year-old Paul Clarke of St Paul’s College, Dublin, has been awarded the top award at this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

As the exhibition celebrates its 50th year, everyone in the RDS in Dublin was asking who would walk away with the coveted top spot among hundreds of incredibly gifted school students.

After months of incredibly hard work put in by the young Dubliner, Paul Clarke made some never-before discoveries in the complex mathematical field of cyclical graph theory which is sure to gain him some notoriety both in Ireland and abroad.

Speaking to Silicon Republic after he received the award, Paul was obviously still coming to terms with his great success and was delighted that the he will now be taking his work to the European Union Contest for Young Scientists in Poland next September. As well as representing his country in the continental competition, Paul will be heading Stateside to Silicon Valley to get first-hand experience of one of the biggest scientific and technological hubs in the world and a cheque for €5,000.

Kinsale Community College in Cork, who last year’s winners hailed from, was once again providing a number of winners, cheered on loudly by the school friends, as Cathy Hynes and Eve Casey picked up the prize of best group for their study using statistical methods to analyse people’s attitudes to the ageing workforce of the future.

BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2014 Winner, Paul Clarke 

Largest to date

In its 50th year, the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition has been the largest in its history with 1,165 students taking part in 550 projects.

There were also special guests invited to the exhibition including its first winner in 1965, John Monahan as well as the team of judges from the first exhibit.

Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn TD was on-hand to distribute the final awards and spoke about how the work the participating students put in to this exhibition was putting Ireland on the map in terms of scientific and technological achievement.  

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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