Multimedia Students pick up €4K CIT Entrepreneur of the Year Prize

Published on: Sunday, 10 March 2013

News Update

Friday 8th March ... ... photos by Neil Danton, Newsdigital.

The 2013 Cork County and City Enterprise Boards CIT Prize for Innovation Awards Ceremony awarded €10,000 in prizes today at a ceremony which featured a keynote address from Olympic athlete Olive Loughnane, who recently retired as an Irish race walker.

First Prize, and title of CIT Entrepreneur of the Year with a prize fund of €4,000, went to 'Mapr’, a software innovation created by CIT multimedia students Paul Shannon, Mark Fitzsimons and Ronan De Lacy, all from Cork City. The games developed will enable stroke patients to perform exercises prescribed by their physiotherapists. This is the first time that students from the Department of Media Communications have won the title of CIT Entrepreneurs of the Year.

The Most Technically Innovative Award of €2,000 went to Project Bird, an award winning software studio focusing on windows and web 2.0 developments. The team is made up Robert Gabriel and Tadhg Foley, both students in Computing (IT Management), at CIT.

Best Business Plan and a prize of €1,000 was awarded to “The No Nonsense Food Company” consisting of Matthew Brownie, Robert Farrow and Hazel Burke all students from Culinary Arts in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies for their development of “Scratch my Pork, a quality, Irish, hand cooked, natural snack that is unique to the Irish market, and produced in a dedicated nut and gluten free facility.

Best Concept and a prize of €1,000 went to Cryostenz (Haemogenics) with students from Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Accounting, and Information Systems, James King, Jeremiah Brennan, Damien Ahern, Tim Murphy, Aoife O’Donovan and Michael Aherne.

The €1,000 prize for Best Presentation Pitch went to 123 Fitness, a team of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering students, Eoghan McEnery, Brian Hand, Aidan O’Sullivan, David Waterman, David Linehan, James Fogarty and Donagh Good. The final award, Best Exhibition Stand at CIT Innovation Day went to Breathe Easy, made up of CIT Accounting and Information Systems students Paul McCarthy, Eoghan Carroll, Jerry Hoare and Darragh Toomey.

This year the competition received 30 entries comprising of 130 students of which 16 teams were shortlisted. The adjudication panel included Paul Healy, CIT Rubicon Centre Manager, Kieran Moynihan, Entrepreneur in Residence, CIT, Ita Murphy, Acting Assistant CEO of Cork City Enterprise Board and Ronan Coleman, Commercialization Specialist, CIT. According to the adjudication panel the standard of entries was excellent and is improving year on year. Cork County and City Enterprise Boards CIT Prize for Innovation is open to all departments within CIT and awards cash prizes to those whose inventions and business ideas are judged most creative, innovative, and most likely to succeed in the marketplace.

Mark Fitzsimons, Paul Shannon and Ronan De Lacy, MAPR Kinecting Patients; overall winners at the Prize for Innovation awards. MAPR is a software innovation created by multimedia students Paul Shannon, Mark Fitzsimons and Ronan De Lacy, all from Cork City. The games developed will enable stroke patients to perform exercises prescribed by their physiotherapists.

Matthew Brownie,No Nonsense Food Company; which received the Best Business Plan award for their product Scratch My Pork!

Tadhg Foley and Robert Gabriel, projectbird.com; winners of the Most Technically Innovative award.

Jerry Brennan, Tim Murphy, Aoife O'Donovan, Michael Aherne and Damien Ahern, Cryostenz; winners of the Best Concept award.

Paul McCarthy, Grenagh, Co Cork; winner of the best app in the APPrentice competition, receiving his award from guest speaker Olive Loughnane.

Guest speaker Olive Loughnane presenting the award for Best Business Plan to Matthew Brownie and Robert Farrow, No Nonsense Food Company. (missing from photo: Hazel Burke)

News update

APP FOR SICK CATTLE WINS APPRentice COMPETITION AT CIT

Thursday 7th March ... photos by Neil Danton, Newsdigital.

An App that provides diagnoses and remedies for sick cattle was the winner of the second annual APPrentice competition which took place at CIT as part of CIT Innovation Week. The aim of the competition is to get the creative juices flowing and to encourage the design of app ideas from students across all of CIT's Faculties.

The competition was a tremendous success with over 113 high quality entries from across the institute including Bar Management, Social Care, Herbal Science, Business, Multimedia, Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Business Information Systems. Some of the entries included apps for bar management, care of the elderly, loyalty card management, cattle care, cinema attendance, and parental control on Wi-Fi access.

The apps were assessed by judges from industry including Pat Phelan, CEO of Trustev, Marion Roche, Irish Fiddler App, Victor Donnelly, DeCare Systems and Conor Quigley from Future Homes, while the internal judges were Martin Connolly, Don Crowley, and Finbarr Sheehan.

Gerard O'Donovan, Head of School of Business in CIT, presented the overall prize in the APPrentice competition to Paul McCarthy from Grenagh, Co. Cork, who is currently in his 4th year of the Bachelor of Business in Information Systems degree.

Paul's app design 'Cattle Care', is an app that provides diagnoses and remedies for sick cattle. The app is targeted at farmers who can type in symptoms of their sick animal and the app suggests a diagnosis and remedy which the farmer can adopt.

Mr O'Donovan said, "The judges, staff and visitors commented on how relevant these app ideas were and their commercial potential. It was great to experience the enthusiasm, creativity and innovative mind set among CIT students. Thanks to the lecturing staff across the Institute who promoted this initiative in the classroom and encouraged students to enter the competition. The competition organisers: Catherine Murphy, Colm Barry Murphy, Isabel Rossiter, Ciara Lavelle- O'Brien, and Michelle Kelleher deserve special mention for their great enthusiasm, hard work and professionalism in ensuring this competition was a great success."

Paul McCarthy, Grenagh, Co Cork, creator of Cattle Care, an app to assist diagnosis and remedy of sick cattle, receiving the 1st place award from Gerard O'Donovan, Head of School of Business, CIT; Catherine Murphy, competition organiser, CIT; and Colm Barry-Murphy, competition organiser, CIT.

Gerard O'Donovan, Head of School of Business, CIT; presenting the 2nd place award to Martin Dunne, creator of Solus, an educational app for autistic children.

Gerard O'Donovan, Head of School of Business, CIT; presenting the 3rd place award to Mary Brady, creator of Parental Wi-fi Control app; with Don Crowley, Head, Continuing Education Department, CIT.

Gerard O'Donovan, Head of School of Business, CIT; presenting the award for best poster design to Laura Murphy and Eimear Collins for their design of Cattle Care poster;

Participating Finalists gather at the APPrentice Award Presentation event.

NEWS UPDATE

A diverse number of entrants have been shortlisted for the 2013 Cork County and City Enterprise Boards CIT Prize for Innovation where €10,000 in prizes will be awarded on Friday, 8th March, at Cork Institute of Technology.

Teams shortlisted include “Mapr”, a software innovation created by CIT multimedia students which developed games to enable stroke patients to perform exercises prescribed by their physiotherapists. Another contestant is a former Young Scientist of the Year recipient now studying Computing in CIT, whose business is a software studio focusing on windows and Web 2.0 developments. Another team “The No Nonsense Food Company”, consisting of students from Culinary Arts in the CIT Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies have also been shortlisted for their product, a snack food, “Scratch my Pork”.

The competition is a two-day event featuring an exhibition of innovation and enterprise at third level. The competition awards cash prizes to those whose inventions and business ideas are judged most creative, novel, innovative, and likely to succeed in the marketplace. Awards on offer include CIT Entrepreneur of the Year, Most Innovative Award and Best Business Plan and Presentation Pitch

This year the competition initially received 30 entries comprising of 130 students of which 16 teams were shortlisted. The adjudication panel included Paul Healy, CIT Rubicon Centre Manager, Kieran Moynihan, Entrepreneur in Residence, CIT, Ita Murphy, Acting Assistant CEO of Cork City Enterprise Board and Ronan Coleman, Commercialization Specialist, CIT.

The title of CIT Entrepreneur of Year will be announced and €10,000 euro will be awarded in prizes at the Awards Ceremony at CIT this Friday [8th March]. This year marks eleven years of the highly successful Cork County and City Enterprise Boards CIT Prize for Innovation competition.

CIT is also hosting the Cork School Enterprise Programme to coincide with Innovation Day. The Cork Schools Enterprise Programme aims to educate second level students about the realities of setting up and running a business.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monday 4th March to Friday 8th March 2013

The competition is the part of Innovation Week at CIT and a full schedule of events for Innovation Week is available at www.cit.ie/innovation

CIT Entrepreneur of Year will be announced, and €10,000 will be awarded in prizes, at an Awards Ceremony at CIT on Friday, 8th March, one of the final events during CIT’s Innovation Week. This year marks eleven years of the highly successful Cork County and City Enterprise Boards CIT Prize for Innovation Competition.

Kieran Moynihan, Entrepreneur in Residence at CIT says, “We are very excited about the tremendous growth of entrepreneurial activities within the students and staff of CIT. The record breaking numbers entering this year’s CIT Prize for Innovation is reflective of this and underscores our drive to copper-fasten CIT’s position as the leading 3rd level entrepreneurial college in the country.”

Previous winners included Myles Murray of PMD Solutions, now based in the on campus incubator, The Rubicon Centre, who has since developed an investment level business plan and has commenced the fundraising process with leading investors. Myles also graduated from the prestigious Genesis Enterprise Programme (now known as the New Frontiers Programme).

CIT is recognised as a key thought-leader at national level in entrepreneurship. This is evidenced by initiatives such as the appointment of Ireland’s first Entrepreneur in Residence in 2010; the very successful Rubicon Centre for business incubation, the appointment of two Enterprise Interns within the Industry Liaison Office and most recently, the creation of its new Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence, The Hincks Centre.

Sean O'Sullivan, CEO of South Cork Enterprise Board said: “The competition gives students the opportunity to take an idea from concept to prototype and to experience real life team work in the safety of the campus environment. This will sow the seeds for future innovators and entrepreneurs.”

CIT will also host the Cork School Enterprise Programme to coincide with Innovation Day. The Cork Schools Enterprise Programme aims to educate second level students about the realities of setting up and running a business.