Minister for Education and Skills Ruari Quinn, TD, with student Grainne Pollak holding the gold Ernest Walton medals that will be presented to the 2012 Undergraduate Award winners
Fifty of some of the world’s brightest undergraduate students will be in Dublin in early November for a summit organised by the Undergraduate Awards. The aim of the 7-10 November event is to help transform Dublin into a virtual campus of innovation for some of the world’s brightest undergraduates to share ideas.
The Undergraduate Awards (UA) were set up in 2008 by Paddy Cosgrave, founder of the Dublin Web Summit, and Oisin Hanrahan, founder of the US start-up HandyBook, as a means of pinpointing future leaders, disruptors and pioneers across all academic disciplines via their undergraduate research.
Since then, the awards have been open each year to final and penultimate year undergraduate students across Europe and North America who submit projects they have completed as part of their coursework.
This year’s award winners will be attending the first UA summit in Dublin to participate in networking events, panels with recruiters and workshops with young entrepreneurs and PhD students who have commercialised their research.
During the summit, UA will also host a Forum on Higher Education. The aim is to bring together thought leaders, pioneers and academics from around the globe to discuss disruptive education and the impact of technology on traditional approaches to teaching and learning.
Then, on 9 November, the President of Ireland Michael D Higgins will award the overall UA winners per academic category.
The UA is also accepting applications from students for the 2013 programme.
