Students from Laois have taken 3rd prize in the Senior category at this year’s Student Enterprise Programme National Finals, which took place in Croke Park.
Supported by Local Enterprise Office Laois, the students won 3rd Place overall in the Senior Category.
The winning students from Heywood Community School were Daniel Aylward, Evan Farrell and Donil Mathew who worked under the guidance of their teachers the school.
Their student enterprise is called Hurlr, where they brought a
bicycle hurl holder to the market which makes cycling to a match or training with a hurl far safer and more convenient.
There were 82 student businesses in contention across three main categories for the Final, in what is Ireland’s largest entrepreneurship programme for second level students.
The initiative saw 25,000 students from almost 500 secondary schools across the country take part.
Neale Richmond, Minister of State for Employment Affairs and Retail Business took part in the ceremony.
He said: “Congratulations to everyone who made it to today’s National Finals.
“With over 25,000 students taking part in this year’s programme, it is a huge achievement to make it to the Finals and shows a real flair for entrepreneurship.
“Some amazing businesses and entrepreneurs have come from this programme – the majority did not win any prizes but are still running successful businesses today.
“So, to those of you who won something today, a huge congratulations, but most importantly, to you all, this is the first step on the path, you are the entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future and everyone here today is excited to see what you do next.”
The National Final students, who competed across three categories, Junior, Intermediate and Senior, were all attendance on the day exhibiting their businesses which were judged by a team of national businesses experts and mentors.
Each student enterprise was challenged with creating, setting up and running their own business, which must show sales of their service or product.
The judging panel included business owners and representatives from enterprise agencies and associated bodies.
Mark Clancy, Acting Head of Enterprise, Local Enterprise Office Laois said; “Year on year the Student Enterprise Programme continues to showcase the very best of Irish ingenuity and entrepreneurship amongst our secondary school students.
“This year produced a varied selection of businesses, from agricultural products and homemade gifts to products that were built on our unique ability to tell compelling stories.
“We see every year that the National Finals are not an end point for our student entrepreneurs, but a stepping-stone on the next stage of their entrepreneurial journey.
“From our class of 22/23 we will see some business leaders and global entrepreneurs of the future emerge.”
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