The Student Enterprise Programme National Finals, which celebrate Ireland’s finest young student entrepreneurs, took place on Thursday, May 7, in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.
Supported by Local Enterprise Office Co Meath, the students continued in winning ways of recent years to see Rohaan Bhatnagar of “FutureDev” from St Patrick Classical School Navan (supported by his teacher Gareth McMahon) win the overall Intellectual Property Award across all categories while also winning the Innovation Award in the Intermediate Category. Rohaan’s business concept is a chat bot app similar to the likes of AI Chat GPT application.
“Stud Savers” from St Olivers, Oldcastle took third place in the Junior Category. The students were, Ben Smith, Nathan McEnroe and Aidan Clarke who worked under the guidance of their teacher, Elaine Smith. “Stud Savers” provides protective cover for studs on sports footwear and they are already achieving great numbers in sales.
There was also great excitement with previous student enterprise participants Kate and Annie Madden from Summerhill and owners of “Fenu Health” picking up the coveted Alumni award. This award is in recognition of their achievements and success to date with their animal health products now shipping across 15 different countries, with over 1000 customers including five Royal Families.
The event was hosted by broadcasters Rick O’Shea and Louise Cantillon and they were joined during the ceremony by Peter Burke, T.D. Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
There were 85 student businesses in contention across three main categories for the Final in what is Ireland’s largest entrepreneurship programme for second level students. The initiative, funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country, saw over 30,000 students from 500 secondary schools across the country take part.
Kieran Kehoe, Chief Executive of Meath County Council said: “It is inspiring to see the creativity and determination demonstrated by the students in this programme. Programmes like this play a vital role in nurturing the next generation of innovators and leaders and it is wonderful to see such entrepreneurial talent emerging here in Meath.”
Joe English Head of Enterprise LEO Meath said “Year on year the Student Enterprise Programme continues to showcase the very best of Irish ingenuity and entrepreneurship amongst our secondary school students. From our class of 24/25 we hope to see some of our next great wave of Irish business leaders and global entrepreneurs emerge and that they too receive the recognition similar to that of Fenu Health in the years to come.”