School Businesses March on!

“Model houses”, “Animated Cartoons” and “Sunvisors for Little People” sweep the 2010 Student Enterprise Awards prizes.

The County Final of the Kerry County Enterprise Boards’ Annual Student Enterprise Awards was held on the 16^th March 2010 in the Meadowlands Hotel in Tralee.

Outstanding participation levels saw over 40 mini-businesses being set up by local Second level schools involved in the competition. The competition promotes business idea development and business structure, sourcing of finance, marketing/sales and the presentation of a formal business plan.

The students progressed through the establishment of a mini company which trades over a period of a number of months. An exciting and rewarding programme, students get to experience the realities of entrepreneurship from developing a business idea to producing a product, researching the market, promoting the business and managing the books.

Prizes were awarded at Junior, Intermediate and Senior level. The winners of the County Student Enterprise Awards in all categories go forward to the National Finals to be held in Croke park on 27^th April.  The Student Enterprise Awards bring a taste of real life business to the classroom.

Margaret Murphy, Programme Organiser stated that “the judges were highly impressed by the high standard of product, the level of innovation and the confidence of the students in presenting their proposal”.

The winners of the Senior Category was “An Teach Beag” which involves the design, manufacture and sale of a range of model structures including houses and cars. The driver of this business is Stephen Mannix from Castleisland Community College.

This project was supported by his teacher Veronica Hanlon.

Runners Up in the Senior Category was Michael Dillane with his project “Christmas Alive” from the CBS, The Green”. This project involves the provision of juvenile Christmas trees and other nursery products.

The winners of the Intermediate Category was “Sungazers” with a project consisting of the manufacture of customised sun visor for cars for little people where the conventional sun visor does not work.

Melanie Harty, Businessperson and adjudicator commented “this project demonstrated practical and innovative product development. I have not seen this product on the market and its viability and prototyping should be investigated further.”

Junior level winners were “Domhan Samhail” from Pobal Scoil Chorca Dhuibhne with the production of an animated cartoon for teaching Irish.

Tomás Hayes, CEO of Kerry County Enterprise Board, stated that “I am amazed at the level of innovation, planning and development of all 40 projects in this year’s awards. Kerry County Enterprise Board has delivered this programme for eight years. This is a real life exercise. It involves idea generation and actual trading. Profits are generated and finance is secured. It is a taste of business and all the issues involved from finding the right idea, funding the business, collecting the money and building the team. I must commend the teachers for their efforts and our mentors for their support. Our judges had a very difficult task!”

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