'Step up to the Mark' Enterprise Camp 2019

15 August, 2019

On Thursday, the teams started finalising their ideas and started practicing their pitches for presentation day. The students were spoilt for choice with the line-up of brilliant speakers for the day.

Aisling Reardon delivered a very informative Marketing session. Aisling has a true passion for Communication and skills in Content Creation, Digital Marketing, SEO and Public Relations. Visit https://aislingreardon.wixsite.com/aisling for more information about Aisling.

Student Inc. Participants 2019: The Student Inc. program supports and encourages student entrepreneurs to develop their business ideas during the summer months. Based in CIT's Rubicon Centre, the students are from a range of courses from CIT, UCC and IT Tralee. Here are three of the current Student Inc. participants that spoke to our Campers about their business ventures.

Student Inc. Participants - Da Silly Heads, Abigale Whelan and Martin Crowley

Da Silly Heads - Putting a face on mental health. Over 20 years of experiencing GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), OCD, Depression, Bi-Polar Disorder and social stigma ignited an idea from two friends to develop a unique concept that will encourage all of us to engage in non-judgemental dialogue around Mental Health. Their goal is to spark a movement of advocacy, which will help to create environments of understanding and empathy. Stigma free society is key to allow ambition, productivity and creativity to flourish.

Abigail Whelan is creating a makeup for sufferers of psoriasis and other skin conditions.

Martin Crowley is creating a board game based on stealing a bank.

For more information on Student Inc. and student entrepreneurship, visit the Rubicon Centre at https://www.rubiconcentre.ie

Later in the day, Marjorie Desmond, Bank of Ireland, gave the students a dynamic lecture on Finance. Marjorie also spoke about changing times in the economy. She said, “78% of consumers in Ireland manage money or make payments using mobile devices”. Bank of Ireland kindly sponsored Munster Rugby tickets for the winners of the Bank of Ireland quiz, which the team took at the end of the session.

To finish, we had a Makerspace type workshop session. Makerspace provides those interested in making anything with the tools, support and environment they need. The teams were busy working on their business ideas thinking of their business name, target market and pathways into that market.