Winners of ENFUSE Finals 2021 Announced

ENFUSE Finals 2021

Winners of ENFUSE Finals 2021 Announced

On the 27th May, student teams and representatives from participating enterprises, universities and industry stakeholders came together online for the ENFUSE Finals 2021. At the finals, 7 teams from TU Dublin, Dublin City University and National College of Ireland competed by pitching to industry judges on the plan they created for a local enterprise. As part of their masters programme, each team supported a local enterprise in Dublin by sharing ideas, knowledge and creating a bespoke plan to help the enterprise innovate. The top 3 teams won specialist mentoring and training supports from the Local Enterprise Office Dublin City for their allocated enterprises along with prizes from Dublin Place Brand.

ENFUSE 2021 – Top 3 teams:

  1. Students: Carl Byrne, Daryl Connolly, Claire Doherty, Dylan Finlay, Daniela Tapia. Client Enterprise: My Tea Workshop. University/College: TU Dublin. MSc Programme: MSc Strategic Management (FT). Module: Strategic Marketing. Lecturer: Dr Lucia Walsh.
  2. Students: Celine Moran, Shveta Srivastava, Debratna Dhali, Sai Srimaha Vishnu Valluri. Client Enterprise: At It Again. University/College: NCI. MSc Programme: MSc in Data Analytics. Module: Data Mining & Machine Learning II (Module 2) Lecturers: Dr. Anu Sahni & Michael Bradford.
  3. Students: Caoimhe O’Sullivan, Max Ricardo Filho, Mitzi Jacinta Sandoval, Mariyyah Alatni. Client Enterprise: Twigs. University/College: TU Dublin. MSc Programme: MSC Business and Entrepreneurship. Module: Consultancy Project. Lecturer: Jennifer Mcdonnell

The ENFUSE Finals, was the culmination of this year’s ENFUSE programme which involved 178 masters students that supported 39 local enterprises, across Dublin. ENFUSE led by Dublin City Council and the Local Enterprise Office in collaboration with TU Dublin, Dublin City University and National College of Ireland, matches local enterprises and social enterprises with masters students who as part of a module, work in teams to directly apply their learning in a real life scenario.

Speaking at the ENFUSE Finals, Greg Swift (Head of Enterprise and Economic Development) said:

‘ENFUSE connects enterprises with students, which greatly benefits both parties. Local enterprises benefit from bespoke research and a plan while students benefit from industry experience and an opportunity to directly apply their learning to support a local enterprise’.

Diana Riquel, and her enterprise My Tea Workshop was supported by TU Dublin students Carl Byrne, Daryl Connolly, Claire Doherty, Dylan Finlay and Daniela Tapia who achieved first place at the finals. Highlighting the students contribution to her enterprise, Diana explained:

‘The team helped me to open my mind and see my business from a different perspective, asking questions that challenged me every step of the way. Their hard work and, precise and thorough research has produced a very practical marketing plan that has facilitated my solopreneur daily workload’

Highlighting the importance of students being able to apply their learning to real life scenarios, Dr. Lucia Walsh, TU Dublin lecturer of the ENFUSE 2021 - 1st Place Student Team stated:

‘Engaging in ENFUSE means that the students can apply their learning in a meaningful and impactful way as they work with real clients. It's a win-win for everyone. All teams have put in a huge amount of work into this and have built new skills and strong relationships with their clients over the last few months. It's very rewarding to see how their innovative thinking translates into strategies that are then actioned by the clients’.

Further Information:

To find out more about the project, please visit: ENFUSE  

Acknowledgements: ENFUSE was previously awarded funding from the Public Service Innovation Fund 2020 by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform / Our Public Service initiative.