Damien English, Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail, has launched Ireland’s largest Student Enterprise Programme, which is expected to attract 25,000 participants.
An initiative of the Local Enterprise Offices, the Student Enterprise Programme has seen over 325,000 secondary school students take part in the programme since it first began two decades ago.
Participating students will compete across three categories, Junior (1st year), Intermediate (2nd and 3rd year) and Senior (4th, 5th and 6th year, LVA, LCA and Youth Outreach).
Each student enterprise is challenged with creating, setting up and running their own business, which must show viable sales of their service or product.
Following county and regional finals, student enterprises from across the country will take part in the final at Croke Park on 5 May 2023.
In Association with
This year will see the introduction of three additional categories of optional competitions including the ‘Best Business Website’ sponsored by .IE, the ‘Green Go Getter Award’ sponsored by the EPA, as well as the ‘Smart Business Idea’ award sponsored by Folens.
These three new awards categories are in addition to ‘My Entrepreneurial Journey’, ‘Social Stars’ and ‘Intellectual Property’ competitions from previous years.
Last year’s winner was Barrelda, an eco-innovation created by two young farmers from Co Meath that specialise in revamping old, blue polythene drums and recycling them to create meal silos and teat feeders.
Minister English stated: “Not only does the programme encourage and foster a love of entrepreneurship, it also creates understanding on what is involved in starting a running a business. from idea right through to making sales.
“No matter what these students do in later life, they will acquire skills in this programme that they can bring with them into jobs and hopefully their own companies in the years to come.”
