10 March, 2017

CIT Innovation Week took place this year from the 6th to 10th of March. Innovation Week is a week-long series of events and activities promoting entrepreneurship and innovation across CIT campuses. This year the schedule included a wide range of seminars, exhibitions, workshops and demonstrations including a Women in Business networking event, a session for green mentors, a talk on food as medicine, a seminar on digital marketing and much more.

Innovation Week culminates each year with Innovation day that took place in the Nexus Hall on Friday the 10th of March. This busy day saw winners being announced for the CIT Prize for Innovation Competition, The APPrentice Competition and the The Enactus CIT Social Innovation Award where students are recognised for their creativity, outside the box thinking and entrepreneurial ideas.

The Apprentice competition, organised by the Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence and sponsored by the School of Business, allows students from all across CIT, as well as FETAC students from Cork Colleges Progression Scheme, Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa, St. John's Central College, Cork College of Commerce, Kinsale College of Further Education and City North College to present their smartphone app ideas in the hopes of winning an iPad. The competition had great success this year with a record number of entries.

155 APPrentice entries were shortlisted to the top 20 best App ideas by experienced internal judges from CIT. These 20 finalist’s ideas were assessed by a panel of external judges on Innovation Day along with a poster creatively designed by a 2nd year desk top publishing class showcasing the App idea. The overall winner of the Best App idea and the new IPAD went to Derek O Toole from electronic engineering with his App idea MediApp, First runner up was awarded to David Mather from Web Development for his Nurse App idea, the second runner up was Ellen Cahill from Business Information Systems with her app idea Receipt-less and the winning team for the best poster comprised of Ambrin Mahmood, Amy Hennessy and Dorota Gwizdalska from 2nd year Business Administration.

The Enactus CIT Social Innovation Award, Sponsored by the Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence and the South Cork local enterprise office awards students for their socially innovative ideas that make a positive impact on individuals and communities. Entries were judged from the applications and final presentations made as part of the Prize for Innovation. The award is presented to the students who take entrepreneurial action to empower individuals and communities in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable way. The proud winner/winners of this worthy award and beautifully designed bespoke trophy made by Luke Sisk (Alumni of Crawford College of Art and Design) was the Aware Bear team.

We would like to congratulate the winners across all of the Innovation competitions. Innovation week has been a tremendous success and we are looking forward to seeing where all of these budding entrepreneurs venture to next.

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