Industry & Business

Some of the best young business minds in the country are getting ready to be put through their paces at the 2017 BT Young Scientist Business Bootcamp which kicked-off on Tuesday at NovaUCD.

Now in its 8th year, the four-day Bootcamp will see 30 students from across the island of Ireland participate in a mentoring and skills programme that will help them to understand how to develop a project idea into a commercially viable business. Over the four days the students will learn the fundamentals of critical business applications such as patenting, business development, sales, marketing and presentation skills.

The students participating in this year’s Bootcamp were hand-picked from the 2017 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition which took place in January. This year, 16 schools from across the island of Ireland will be represented spanning 10 counties – Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, Derry, Louth, Offaly, Tipperary and Westmeath.

The Bootcamp is designed and delivered by BT Ireland and University College Dublin.

BT Ireland Managing Director Shay Walsh said: “Each year, the brightest young minds in the country walk through the doors of the RDS for the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, many of whom are aspiring entrepreneurs with excellent business ideas, but who are simply lacking the knowledge and skills to take their project ideas to the next stage. The Bootcamp equips these students with the tools and more importantly, the confidence, to hopefully make the leap into business and we are so proud to be able to play a part in helping these young people to realise their potential.”

The students will be divided into six teams to work on an award winning project from this year’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, for which they will need to develop a business pitch for a panel of judges.

The projects for this year’s Bootcamp include:

• Foal sickness containment and prevention – Investigated foal sickness, containment and prevention and made a sensor to detect early illness.
• LifeStats – A multi-award-winning web-app/IoT network that aims to augment people’s lives using statistics and provide cost-effective contextual-advertising for local businesses without the need for user tracking.
• MiContact – An app based on applied behaviour analysis to enhance early intervention programs and encourage children with autism to make eye contact.
• Ergonomic Planter – A device that will improve planting in developing countries by allowing users plant with increased safety, consistency and speed using an ergonomically designed portable planter.
• Unlicensed to Kill – A device to prevent unlicensed drivers from endangering others on our roads by not being able to even start a car without a valid license.

The Bootcamp will culminate on Thursday, when the teams will present their business plans to a judging panel comprised of academics and senior business professionals.