Students from St. Mary’s Secondary School, Buttevan,t with teacher Celine Cronin, Programme co-ordinator Gary Low,e and Joan Kelleher, Business Adviser, LEO Mallow, Programme sponsor.
450 second level students from all over North Cork were put through their paces at a special Student and Teacher Brainstorm-ing Day held at the Charleville Park Hotel last Thursday, 27th September. The event was part of the North Cork Schools Enterprise Pro-gramme, which encourages students to set up and run a business over the course of the academic year to help them learn all about entrepreneurship. One of Ireland’s leading innovation training companies, The Entre-preneurs Academy, facilitated the event which gave the teenagers the opportunity to learn about the most exciting new business ideas being developed around the world and how they too can learn various brainstorming techniques to develop their own business ideas for the mini-company programme.
The young entrepreneurs were broken into groups to do some practical idea generation work to help them find innovative ideas that they can base their mini companies on for this year’s competition. In total, 15 second level schools from North Cork were represented at the event, with students taking part in the programme from both junior and senior cycle.
Joan Kelleher, Business Advisor with the Local Enterprise Office wel-comed the students and teachers and said, “we are looking forward to another successful year with the Schools Enterprise Programme. The Programme in North Cork is one of the strongest in the country and we are very fortunate to have such dedicated teachers who work tirelessly every year to help their students learn about the importance of entrepreneurship. Today’s workshop with the Entrepreneurs Academy will be hugely beneficial to all participants. We hope you make the most of the experience and enjoy the day.”
Speaking at the event, Co-Ordinator of the North Cork Schools Enterprise Programme, Garry Lowe of Whizzkids Training said, “We are really delighted with the huge turnout at today’s event. We have 450 students from all over North Cork brainstorming and networking with each other. There was a lot of positivity in the room here today. We hope they will take on board the processes we have shown them and apply them again and again over the coming months. Today’s event could be the start of a successful entre-preneurial career for some of these students.”
Julia Barry of Scoil Mhuire, Kanturk, who were winners of the North Cork Student Enterprise Programme last year, said “It’s a great start to the academic year for us and of course we are so proud to be the reigning senior champions of student enterprise in North Cork. We hope to continue with this success with the programme this year.”
The next event in the North Cork Schools Enterprise calendar is the Christmas Trade Fair which takes place on Thursday, 13th December, in Mallow GAA Complex, where students will set up stands and put their products and services on display to the public.