Fingal Students Set for Croke Park Entrepreneurship Final

Local Enterprise Office Fingal have announced that teenage entrepreneurs from Coolmine Community School and Castleknock College will represent Fingal at this year’s Student Enterprise Programme National Finals on Friday 5^th May.  The Finals make a return to Croke Park for the first time since 2019.

The students all took part in the Fingal Final which was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Blanchardstown. Over 1,200 students from 27 Fingal Schools took part in this year’s programme.

The enterprise education 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 25,000 students from just under 500 secondary schools across the country take part in 2021 / 2022.  The programme supports students to create, design and market their own business, all with the hope of reaching the National Finals.

The Fingal Student Enterprise County Final 2022/2023 was sponsored by Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ETB (DDLETB), Blanchardstown Centre, SimTech Aviation and One4All.

A series of awards were presented, including the announcement of the winners of each of the three categories, which will go on to represent Fingal at the National Student Enterprise Awards:

Junior Category: The team of Junior winning students are James Harcourt, Adam Li, Oran O’Neil  from their business “Dr. Ink”  at Castleknock College.

Intermediate Category: The winner of Intermediate Category to represent Fingal is Shane Cunningham from his business “Eco Case”, also from Castleknock College.

Senior Category: Fingal will be represented in Senior Category by Líanna Connolly, Iria Carcoba, Ava Sansovini and Aoife Goslin from their business “Aura”, from Coolmine Community School. 

Special guests at the Fingal Final included Mayor of Fingal Cllr Howard Mahony, John Quinlivan, Director of Services at Fingal County Council and Oisín Geoghegan, Head of Enterprise at Local Enterprise Office Fingal.

Fingal has had success over the years with Loreto Balbriggan winning the Special Merit prize in Intermediate category in 2020/2021 with their product Bee Happy. Malahide-Portmarnock Educate Together also took the first prize in the Junior category at the National Student Enterprise Programme back in 2019. 

Speaking at the county final, Head of Enterprise at Local Enterprise Office Fingal, Oisín Geoghegan congratulated the students, saying:  “We have a very successful student enterprise programme here in Fingal with over 1,200 students from 27 local schools taking part this year. Our national finalists are excellent ambassadors for the programme and we wish them the very best of luck at the National finals in Croke park, and we will all be there to support them.  In what has been a particularly challenging couple of years for students the programme has offered them an outlet outside of the usual school demands.  What our students are learning from the programme is that with the right supports and encouragement, they can take an idea from the classroom and develop it into a real-life business. The skills they learn along the way, such as business planning, market research, selling and teamwork, will help them become more entrepreneurial throughout their future careers”.

Councillor Howard Mahony, Mayor of Fingal spoke about the positive contribution of the SEP to the Fingal Region: “Fingal County Council aims to ensure that our residents are provided with every opportunity to be successful, especially the younger generation. The Student Enterprise Programme, encourages local students to work on developing key business related skills which will undoubtedly stand to them in the future.” 

He added: "Students who participate in this programme gain a valuable insight into the reality of maintaining a real-life business on a daily basis. The Programme really is invaluable to students, who in turn foster an entrepreneurial spirit by taking part.”

The local students will be competing against hundreds of other student entrepreneurs from all over Ireland at the Student Enterprise Programme National Finals, taking place at Croke Park in Dublin on the 5^{th of} May. 

Since the Student Enterprise Programme began in 2003, over 350,000 students have taken part, learning key skills on how to create a business idea, start a business and grow a business.  The Student Enterprise Programme also has new range of online resources for 2022 / 2023 at www.StudentEnterprise.ie, which will feature regular blogs and houses a full range of Student Enterprise resources for students and teachers.   

Further information around the Student Enterprise Programme is available from www.studententerprise.ie and by searching #studententerprise on social media.