17 August, 2018

August is usually a month to go on holidays for almost everybody, except for ‘The Hincks’.  For many years now, we have been organising the Enterprise Camp, a one-week camp that aims to provide a creative, innovative and inspirational environment for 14 to 16 year old students, to build their creative confidence and to explore their potential as entrepreneurs.

This year’s camp ran from August 13th to 17th at CIT’s Bishopstown campus. We welcomed 53 students from 23 different schools from Cork City and County on Monday. Some of them came with their friends and some came on their own but all of them had the hope to meet other students (future friends) with whom to share the same illusions.

We know that Monday’s are tough for everyone, but with just a week to come up with a group business idea that they needed to present on the last day, and since we made 11 teams formed by students who did not know each other, that Monday was a little bit tougher. We fixed that with some icebreaking games and, by the end of the day, everybody was getting along great.

Monday was the day to build the team and to discover a potential business idea. Dr. Breda Kenny, Head of the Management & Enterprise Department, gave them a very interesting lesson on how they can seek and search for gaps in the market and come up with ideas for products that will be sought after in the future. We also had a few workshops during the week with MakerSpace, a place that provides those interested in making anything, with the tools, support and environment they need.

Tuesday, was probably the longest day. Full of presentations from professional speakers, students went through Branding, Finance and Consumer Behavior sessions. Stephen Wilson Downey, a former student from a CIT program and who now has his own branding company, gave them the Branding session. Dr. Helen McGuirk, Head of Hincks Centre, focused on potential clients and Shane Curtis from Bank of Ireland gave them a dynamic lecture on Finance. He also gave Munster Rugby tickets to the team that won the Bank of Ireland quiz that they did at the end of the session.

Half way through the week was the best day. We started the day with brief talks from some of the Student Inc. participants. Student Inc. is a programme that runs over the summer period to encourage undergraduate entrepreneur students from a range of degree courses to develop their business idea.  Between the breaks George Bulman Head of Rubicon Centre, led the students through a Market Research session. The highpoint of the day came when we went to Teamwork.com.

Teamwork.com is a software company that creates task management and team collaboration software to support high-performance teams. The headquarters, here in Cork, is a place where everyone wants to work. They even had the opportunity to go down through a slide!

Thursday was basically the day when they needed to finalise their idea and start practicing their pitches for the last day. Neville O’Donoghue from Benchwarmers visited us and gave all of us advice on how to use social media platforms. To end the day, students had the chance to visit CIT’s business incubator, Rubicon Centre.

The final day, the presentation day or the day students wanted to avoid, arrived. The parents who came and saw how their kids performed would not have believed me if we had told them that they were freaking out about this day.  All of the teams presented their business ideas, and the confidence they showed during their time on the stage was outstanding.

Dr. Helen McGuirk officiated the proceedings, CIT’s President, Dr. Barry O’Connor, presented the Attendance Certificates and Gerard O’Donovan, Head of Faculty – Business and Humanities, presented the Certificates for Best Business Idea, Best Presentation and Best Social/Environmental Idea. The judges, Dr Pio Fenton, Head of Marketing and International Business, Bernard Yore of EirData, and Thao Truong from Da Nang University, Vietnam, decided on the winners.

Photographs of the winning teams with Gerard O'Donovan and Dr. Helen McGuirk.

- Best Business Idea, Team 11:

o Adam O’Leary
o Anna Mulcahy
o Evan Keohane
o Joshua Davis
o Jude Forde
o Leo Coffey 

 

- Best Presentation, Team 5:

o Cian O’Reilly
o Eoin Twohig
o Rachael O’Callaghan
o Sean O’Callaghan

- Best Social/Environmental, Team 6:

o Eve Roche
o Daniel O’Reilly
o Eoin Canty
o Jack Connolly

- Munster Rugby Tickets Winners, Team 3:

o Callan O’Leary
o Chloe Linehan
o Emilia Donelon
o Emmet Downey
o Marek Zbanski

Thanks to all who participated in this year’s camp, especially to the students who made the week enjoyable. We already miss them and are looking forward to next year’s camp. We wish the best to all of them and we are pretty sure that their ideas will be seen in the not too distant future.

 

For more photos of the camp go to  https://www.facebook.com/Citenterprisecamp/