Winners, from left: Adam Torrens from South Eastern Regional College; Megan Doyle from Skerries Community College; Matt Murtagh White from Kilkenny College; Emer Creedon from Regina Mundi College; and Deirdre Harford from Loreto Secondary School
A team of five secondary school students who developed a project called ‘Smart pipe: an automated water circulation anti-freezing system’ have won the 2012 BT Young Scientist Business Bootcamp, held at NovaUCD this afternoon.
They were evaluated by a panel of judges and course mentors and selected as the team that developed most during the bootcamp, which ran this week at NovaUCD.
The winning team comprised Matt Murtagh White (17) from Kilkenny College in Co Kilkenny; Emer Creedon (16) from Regina Mundi College in Co Cork; Adam Torrens (19) from South Eastern Regional College in Bangor, Co Down; Deirdre Harford (17) from Loreto Secondary School, Balbriggan in Co Dublin; and Megan Doyle (16) from Skerries Community College, Dublin.
Daniel Hobbs (17) from Maynooth Post Primary in Maynooth, Co Kildare was recognised as the best individual student during the week.
The winners have now gleaned summer placements at NUI Galway, University of Limerick, UCD and University of Ulster.
In addition James Eggers of St Michael’s College in Dublin has been offered both commercial space and the opportunity to pitch his idea at the next Dublin Web Summit in October.
His project focuses on the detection of incidents on roads in real-time with Twitter and traffic cameras.
Daniel Hobbs from Maynooth Post Primary in Maynooth, Co Kildare who was recognised as the best individual student at the science bootcamp. He’s pictured at NovaUCD today. Photo: Chris Bellew/ Fennells
The students themselves were selected from January’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition for having demonstrated an understanding of commercially viable opportunities, business acumen and innovative flair.
Some of the 32 students who participated in this week’s bootcamp said today that they would now be changing their academic direction, and in turn their future career, based on what they have taken from the programme.
Interestingly, 90pc of the students said that they anticipate Ireland’s economic recovery to take between seven to 10 years.
Career direction
And what type of career path is foremost in their minds?
Apparently, most students would like to pursue medical, science or business degrees at third level.
Shay Walsh, managing director business at BT Ireland, said that the bootcamp aims to bridge the gap between the classroom and the boardroom, with the purpose of embedding an ethos of entrepreneurship and innovation in talented second-level students who are inspired by science and engineering.
