Student Inc.Accelerator programme has 29 exciting graduates

Today 29 young entrepreneurs were congratulated on successfully completing the Student Inc. Accelerator Programme at Cork Institute of Technology, University College Cork and Institute of Technology Tralee.

The Accelerator Programme runs from June to August and set up to encourage students to develop and grow their innovative ideas and start their own business.

Students with business talent

Students receive €4,000 in funding (purchase equipment and a wage to offset a summer job), expert training, mentoring, office space, and the opportunity to learn from and pitch to entrepreneurs.

Speaking today at a virtual showcase event, Carole O’Leary, Programme Manager said:

“This year’s programme had to be adapted in response to Covid-19 restrictions and the need to social distance. My colleagues at UCC, IT Tralee, and I worked in conjunction with the Technology Enhanced Learning Department in CIT and the E-Learning Development and Support Unit in IT Tralee to design a way to deliver the programme online and ensure students received the full benefit of the programme.

As all training modules, one-to-one expert mentoring sessions, and regular review meetings were delivered virtually over the summer, the online teams put a lot of thought into new ways of maximising the daily contact between the students and the support teams in the three colleges”.

“Developing a new business idea can be a lonely place, particularly during a pandemic. In normal times office space is allocated to each student in their respective incubators with access to their start-up communities, so we ensured plenty of social interaction each week, in a trusted environment, to help alleviate isolation and compensate for the lack of face-to-face contact.

We are very proud that we kept Ireland’s longest-running student accelerator programme running and we now have 29 new entrepreneurs with fully-fledged business and completed business plans”.

Today’s showcase event took place with all 29 students and their 3 support teams in attendance virtually, combined with an online audience of guests from all over Ireland, including guest speaker, James Whelton, co-founder of CoderDojo, coder and venture capital advisor.

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here.
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