Calling all Business Savvy Students

The 2010 Enterprise Ireland Student Enterprise Awards were launched Friday 4 December, offering third level students from all academic disciplines across the island of Ireland the chance to realise their entrepreneurial ambitions.

These awards are about encouraging third level students with the ambition and drive to establish their own businesses to explore their ideas and their own appetite for going into business for themselves. Taking part in the programme gives them the chance to test their flair for business and in the process become more confident of their sense of judgment, more adept at decision-making and idea generation and resourceful in making these ideas a reality.

The Vision RE project team from Cork Institute of Technology, winners of the award for the Most Technologically Innovative Idea at the 2009 event, show what can be achieved. Representing both the Mechanical Engineering and Business Studies Departments, Kieran O'Callaghan, Etaoin Ni hAilpin and Norma Downing, combined their technical know how and business skills to develop a terrain and obstacle detection system for the visually impaired.  Demonstrating real entrepreneurial vision and drive, team member Kieran O'Callaghan has since gone on to win a Global Student Entrepreneur Finalist Award at the GSEA finals in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. With three distinct products now being developed, Vision RE aim to launch on the market in the next 12 months. You can read more about Vision RE on http://visionre.cit.ie. And Etaoin Ni hAilpin and Norma Downing have set up their own Financial and Marketing advice business, Chix that Fix.

Sponsored by Enterprise Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland and Cruickshank Intellectual Property Attorneys, the Enterprise Ireland Student Enterprise Awards are Ireland's largest and longest established third-level student enterprise competition.  Visit www.studententerpriseawards.com for more information.