student entrepreneurship stories ·
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Student EntrepreneurshipStories
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Entrepreneurship has never been a more visible part of popular culture. Everyone knows of the exploits of Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. However, entrepreneurship is more than just something we read about in our newspapers; it is actually the engine that drives our economy.
67% of all new job-creation in Ireland comes from businesses in the first 5 years of existence. Small businesses make up over 99% of businesses in the enterprise economy in Ireland and account for 70% of people employed.
The most successful entrepreneurs are those who are passionate about what they do and bring that passion to their venture. You do not have to be a business graduate to develop a winning business. Success is based on quality of the idea, the strength of the team, and the energy committed to developing the innovative idea from concept to product. Entrepreneurship is a viable future pathway for our students and graduates. They will establish the household name companies of the future.
Tangent is about enabling this ambition through education, entrepreneurship and innovative programming, and we hope you enjoy reading just a sample of the success stories our students have enjoyed since engaging with us. Partner with us to imagine, collaborate and take action. We are now open for business.
Dr. Diarmuid O’BrienChief Innovation & Enterprise OfficerTrinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
Innovation and Entrepreneurship are central to Trinity’s mission in education and research. Trinity generates a fifth of all spin-out companies in Ireland and is Europe’s number 1 university for educating entrepreneurs. This leading position has come about thanks to the proactive and visionary initiatives we have put in place to facilitate tech transfer and release the entrepreneurial potential of students and staff.
Tangent, Trinity’s Ideas Workspace, is the new umbrella initiative coordinating our activities in innovation and entrepreneurship – including our remarkable student accelerator, LaunchBox; Blackstone LaunchPad at Trinity; and the Innovation Academy – and acting as a hub for the whole Trinity community and the wider innovation ecosystem. Located in a bespoke space on the Trinity campus, Tangent offers programmes and master classes in innovation, creative thinking and entrepreneurship.
Through Tangent, entrepreneurship will further embed itself as a key attribute of a Trinity education, and we will deepen our engagement with the business community in Dublin and with graduate entrepreneurs worldwide.
Dr. Patrick PrendergastPresident & ProvostTrinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
an introduction
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Tangent, trinity's ideas workspace, is a place in which to imagine, collaborate, and put into action Ideas that can change the world.
Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, is committed to providing a transformative learning environment that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship at all levels across the university. The opportunities opening up today are infinite. They are invisible to some, impossible to others. Identifying these opportunities to students requires new tools and methods. Realising them requires imagination.
Tangent is a new unit in Trinity offering students, staff, and the wider innovation ecosystem programmes and events in innovation, creative thinking, and entrepreneurship. Through our masterclasses, innovation challenges, certificate programmes, hackathons, meetups, fireside chats, incubation space, and startup accelerator programmes – Tangent provides countless opportunities to innovate and imagine. All of which will be held in a newly developed bespoke innovation space on Trinity’s main campus.
IMagInatIonWe inspire, challenge and provoke a creative mindset among our student population. Through effective education and supports, Tangent helps to spark our students’ imagination. We encourage curiosity and ideation. This is what helps us to create real impact.
collaboration We embrace the creative fusion that happens when arts meet science, and education meets enterprise. Through collaboration we believe that when we come together with an open mind and embrace alternative ways of thinking, no challenge is too complex, no opportunity out of reach.
actionWe do not stop at ideas. We create impact, disruption, and enterprises that stand the test of time. Tangent values action. We empower our students to try to create new possibilities. We deliver economic, cultural, and social value through entrepreneurship. Our students’ perseverance enables their ideas to come alive.
We hope you enjoy reading about some of their journeys here. Find out more about Tangent at www.tcd.ie/tangent, follow us on social media, and sign up to the Tangent mailing list (www.tcd.ie/tangent/signup) to receive our newsletter and stay up to date on all things Tangent.
@TCDTangent @TCDTangent /TCDTangent
www.tcd.ie/tangent
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– Iseult & Aoibheann
passionateAbout Waste
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Iseult Ward was a business student at Trinity when she met Aoibheann O’Brien at an event focusing on the issue of food waste in Ireland. They bonded over their shared disbelief in the large quantities of food which went to waste every day, despite 1 in 10 people going hungry. Ward and O’Brien began working to manually connect food-based businesses with local charities, but this was extremely labour intensive and completely impractical long term. The pair went back to the drawing board and after utilising the vast resources of LaunchBox, Tangent’s Student Accelerator, in 2013, the FoodCloud app was born.
Through the FoodCloud app, Ward and O’Brien were able to efficiently link businesses with unsellable food to charities that could utilise the leftovers. This success caught the eyes of supermarket giant Tesco, which joined FoodCloud in July of 2014, quickly catapulting FoodCloud’s business reputation. The success didn’t stop there, that same year, Ward was even listed as one of Time magazine’s ‘Next Generation Leaders’.
With its huge success across Ireland, Tesco has rolled out a FareShare FoodCloud app for use in many of its UK stores, as well as large number of other grocery store chains planning on adopting the platform in coming years. FoodCloud has grown from a mere 2 founders to currently boasting a team of 16, with ambitions for worldwide expansion.
FoodCloud has so far redistributed over 15 million kilograms of food that would otherwise have gone to waste. The social enterprise has also signed partnerships with forecourt retailer Applegreen and Nestle Ireland.
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– Eric
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When exploring the virtual landscape in a video game, a user rarely considers the complexity that even the smallest details may hold. The creation of graphics requires the manipulation of small pixels, hundreds of which are required to create even the smallest objects. Now multiply this by the millions of objects making up a game and you’re left with countless days, months, or even years of work to produce a single game. This is precisely why former Trinity PhD student Eric Risser created Artomatix, a company focused on what he calls ‘Artificial Imagination’, that is taking digital art creation to the next level. Artomatix took part in the inaugural LaunchBox accelerator in 2013.
Artomatix allows for physically-based rendering (PBR) of textures by ‘thinking’ on its own, thus reducing the workload and cost that would otherwise be required to make a variety of objects. According to Risser, who has used Artomatix as a means of implementing his long-running research in the subject matter, “A unique thing about Artomatix, [is that] we’re taking technology that people have only seen in the lab and we’re bringing it to the real world.” With the drastic amounts of time saved by these systems, the possibilities are endless with applications extending beyond the video game realm.
Artomatix has gone from strength to strength since its time in LaunchBox, and founder Eric regularly gives his time to the next generation of aspiring entrepreneurs in Trinity.
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– Artyom & Kyrill
Brothers Zorin
The
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Kyrill and Artyom Zorin were just 14 and 12 respectively when they began developing Zorin OS. It all began in the summer of 2008 when they discovered and downloaded the Linux Operating system onto their computer, an alternative to the more common operating systems. However, their father struggled to navigate the new systems “designed for engineers, by engineers” interface. The young brothers realised that a more intuitive Linux system was a recipe for success. However, one daunting obstacle stood in their way: neither of the boys knew a thing about coding.
After months of studying and hard work, the brothers had created the first version of Zorin OS, reaching thousands of users within a matter of weeks. Fast forward 7 years and 12 versions later, Kyrill and Artyom availed of 1:1 coaching and supports from the Blackstone LaunchPad at Trinity programme, and today Zorin OS has been downloaded over 16 million times by families, businesses, schools, and governments around the world.
Despite the attempts of countless Venture Capitalists, the brothers have stood strong, continuing to offer the basic Zorin OS Core free of charge, with Zorin OS Ultimate going for a reasonable €19. They have dedicated themselves to building brand recognition and cultivating a loyal customer base that will benefit them for years to come.
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Blackstone LaunchPad is a campus-based entrepreneurship programme, accessible by over 500,000 students globally, designed to support and mentor students, staff and alumni – regardless of experience or discipline.
At Tangent, we focus on entrepreneurs not ideas. Our mission is to introduce Trinity students to entrepreneurship, help them develop entrepreneurial skills and enable them to independently achieve success in whatever venture they pursue. We want everyone in the Trinity community to feel supported and empowered to solve global problems, pursue their own business and startup ideas, and have a real impact on society and the world.
Throughout the academic year, the Blackstone Launchpad team run a series of events including innovation challenges, hackathons, sprints and individual mentoring sessions. Regardless of what stage your idea is at or in what sector, the team are available to help you progress your idea to the next stage.
at Trinity
blackstone launchpad
www.tcd.ie/tangent/mentoring/launchpad/
®
SUPPORTED BY
If you would like more details on Blackstone LaunchPad at Trinity, contact Joe:
Contact Joseph Lanzillotta
(01) 896 2342
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An innovation challenge is a focused period of time spent on the creation and elaboration of the best and sustainable ideas to address a defined problem or theme. Multidisciplinary teams are formed around a proposed solution and facilitated ideation and solution development is supported. The challenge ends with a pitch event and the most compelling presentation deemed the winner.
A hackathon is a timebound design sprint in which participants collaborate intensively on a challenge to develop an innovative software based solution. Teams of software developers, graphic designers, interface designers, project managers, subject matter experts and others collaborate intensively for a few days ending in pitch presentation and a selected winner.
INNOVATION CHALLENGES & HACKATHONS
At Blackstone LaunchPad at Trinity we offer year round support and guidance for individuals interested in initiating ideas, innovation and entrepreneurship. You can book an appointment with a dedicated mentor for confidential advice on a business idea, social enterprise endeavour or any initiative you wish to be realised. To book a 1-2-1 chat on your idea, please visit our website; www.tcd.ie/tangent/mentoring/launchpad/
1-2-1 MENTORING
The LaunchPad Sprints programme consists of four entrepreneurship sessions run over two weeks during and outside of term. The purpose of the programme is to introduce entrepreneurship and startup practices to individuals and teams who are interested in entrepreneurship, social enterprise, and other startup initiatives.
The Blackstone LaunchPad Sprints programme was set up to give budding student entrepreneurs a crash course in real life entrepreneurship and ideation. The programme is open to individual participants from Trinity (at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level).
BLACKSTONE LAUNCHPAD SPRINTS
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LaunchBox, Tangent’s Student Accelerator, is a 12-week summer programme open to teams of students with an early-stage business or social enterprise.
The programme provides funding for teams to work for themselves for the duration, mentorship, access to alumni and investor networks, and the ideal collaborative environment to launch a new startup venture. Since beginning in 2013, over 70 student startups have been accelerated through LaunchBox, going on to raise over €9.2m in investments.
Trinity prides itself on its students’ innovation, enterprise, courage, and creativity, and LaunchBox is a perfect example of these qualities. We aim to empower students to forge and follow their own path through entrepreneurship, and this is made possible through the support for such projects both within Trinity and within the startup ecosystem.
tangent’s student accelerator
launchbox POWERED BY
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international accelerator
tangent pioneers
Tangent Pioneers, powered by Bank of Ireland, is a new programme which will take our startups international offering the valuable opportunity to learn how to operate in a different (more competitive) market. For one week, Trinity startups will network, learn, pivot, pitch and grow in a new market with new challenges and opportunities.
The programme will showcase Tangent, Trinity’s Ideas Workspace, and our innovation partnership with Bank of Ireland to a diverse audience including New York-based startups, Enterprise Ireland, alumni, and the US startup ecosystem. It will raise the profile of Trinity internationally and allow us to engage with our US-based alumni in a meaningful way.
The four-day programme will take place during the study week of Trinity’s first semester. Bank of Ireland’s Innovation Lab New York will host the programme. Sections of the week are reserved for our startups to organise and setup their own engagements and meetings within the ecosystem.
POWERED BY
If you would like more details on either LaunchBox or Tangent Pioneers, contact Alison:
Contact Alison Treacy
(01) 896 8543
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– Dan & James
bettering the
exam process
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Dan Hobbs met his cofounder James Eggers on the BT Young Scientist in 2012, where Dan was awarded the BT Young Scientist Businessperson of the Year. In their Leaving Cert year, not long thereafter, the pair attended a LaunchBox Demo Day and decided they would feature in the programme before their time in Trinity was finished.
They started their company Betterexaminations in 2015, and continued to work on it throughout their years in college. When they applied for a place on LaunchBox 2016 they had started to generate significant revenue.
Their idea was simple, as often the best startup ideas are – improving on the outmoded past exam papers website run by the Department of Education.
Having completed LaunchBox and, subsequently, their studies at Trinity, Betterexaminations has diversified moving into National Teaching Awards, university and professional exam software, and more.
The partnership that started as teenagers remains strong to date with Dan acting as CEO, and James CTO. James and Dan continue to support the LaunchBox programme acting as speakers and mentors for the next generation of innovators at Trinity.
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– Gail
Nursingwordsmith
the
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Following her graduation from nursing school, Gail Condon began her career in paediatric medicine, which oftentimes required working with children going through difficult procedures that many adults could never imagine going through. To distract the children from these uncomfortable operations, Gail began drawing bespoke pictures which eventually transformed into short stories, enjoyed by children and their parents alike. Gail later returned to study at Trinity in the hopes of working in the field of speech therapy, but couldn’t forget the impact her stories had made on her patients.
Gail knew her calling was staring her straight in the face and decided to pursue her idea by applying to be part of the founding class of LaunchBox in 2013. With her strong passion and the right supports and assistance, she has been able to found her own company, Writing for Tiny, where she can make the lives of hospitalised children (and their parents) a little bit better.
Thanks to Gail, parents are now able personalise a story and characters for their child online, and receive a special handbound book to read with their child. Because of Gail’s compassion and her commitment and dedication, countless children have been able to find small amounts of comfort in some of their darkest days.
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– Simon & Pierce
hurdles ofentrepreneurship
oVercoming the
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Pierce Dargan has always had an avid interest in the horse-racing industry. His great-grandfather is the former President of the Turf Club, and his family have raised and trained horses for generations. When Pierce realised that this lucrative industry still relied on pen-and-paper solutions to avoid doping fines and track the veterinary care for racehorses, he decided to make a change.
Pierce and his co-founder, CTO Simon Hillary, placed first in LaunchBox 2017 with Equine Medirecord: a company that develops, sells and maintains a mobile application and website to allow proper recording of medicines administered to racehorses and other bloodstock.
Since that time, Equine Medirecord has gone from strength to strength. The company has been publicly endorsed by winning-trainer, John Oxx; Chief Executive of the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, Michael Grassick; and the Head of Veterinary Ireland’s Equine Group, Hugh Dillon.
Equine MediRecord has won a number of awards including; Best Overall Startup and Most Innovative Initiative serving the Thoroughbred Industry at the ITBA Expo 2018; the Number One Draft Pick Startup Competition at the One Zero Conference 2017, the largest sports technology conference in Europe; and the ‘Best Use of Mobile’ at Digital Media Awards 2018. The company is also a finalist in the 2018 Irish Times Innovation Awards.
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– Albert
edisonreborn
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“There is a way to do it better - find it.” If there is someone who has actually taken this quote by Thomas Edison and implemented it, it’s Albert Baker, the creator of Sitespy. Baker, a Masters graduate from Trinity, had been working as a network planning optimisation engineer when he came up with the idea of Sitespy. “There seemed to be scope for rolling out industrial Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to improve the remote management of network equipment.” The wide scope of implementation and the passion for creating something different inspired Baker and his partner, William Coleman, to design such a product, and take it forward through the LaunchBox accelerator and beyond.
Sitespy is an IoT design company that provides variable solutions which cater for the needs of clients in different sectors. They provide complete end-to-end solutions, from hardware such as sensors, to wireless back haul, in addition to a full back-end user interface. This complete system gives companies the impressive ability to send data to and from remote sites. One field where Sitespy have made significant impact in the mobile network industry. This industry still utilises manual methods to measure antenna position, orientation, and height, all of which must be done by engineers at a large cost to the company.
The simple integration of the Sitespy sensor and design hardware, now does all of this with the click of a button. Albert absolutely found a better way to do it and if Edison was still alive, he’d be proud.
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– Aisling
ethical is the
new black
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Aisling Byrne came face to face with the realities of the modern clothing industry during the summer of 2013 while traveling to India with the Trinity branch of SUAS. She was able to see first-hand the low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions that are part of the vicious cycle created by our thirst for ‘fast fashion’. Byrne returned to Ireland determined to break this cycle, hoping to convince people that being ethical and fashionable, even on a budget, was within reach.
With help from Blackstone LaunchPad at Trinity and LaunchBox, Byrne was able to create Nu. in 2016, a company focused on creating an ethical fashion community. Nu. takes a multi-tier approach with an online presence, combined with in-person events.
Byrne is thrilled with the success of Nu., but continues to search for new ways to take their company to new levels. She is looking to spread their influence to a much broader scale with the creation of an app that will enable clothes swapping all day, every day, and include a unique clothes library, where subscribers can rent out fashion pieces that are not only ethically sourced, but also beautifully designed. It’s exactly this innovation and commitment that earned them 2nd place in the prestigious, Bank of Ireland StartUp of the year competition in 2015.
Nu. is sure to be much more than just a passing trend with people growing increasingly conscious of the far reaching effects of our everyday choices. With the passion of people like Aisling behind it, Nu. is sure to send ripples through the fashion world and leave a lasting impact on the industry. Aisling has remained involved with Tangent, and has been a Women Who Wow mentor as well as a LaunchBox speaker.
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– Briony
history,politics,
& fashion
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With a background and previous career in fashion, and a passion for well-written, relevant editorials and content that would be of interest to the thinking woman, Briony Somers started FRANC magazine while she was studying History & Political Science in Trinity.
FRANC was, and remains, a brand offering an intelligent, original, and provocative perspective on fashion and culture. Briony found she could generate revenue from FRANC, as well as fulfil her creative interests and abilities through the magazine. This prompted her to think about LaunchBox as an option the summer before her graduation, despite the fact that previously ‘entrepreneur’ would not have been her stated job title.
She aimed to progress her company and her skillset by applying for a mentor on the Women Who Wow programme. Briony was matched with Deirdre, a mentor with a lot of experience navigating the commercial world, someone who would empower and advise Briony, challenging her to continue to challenge herself. Deirdre guided her through the application process to LaunchBox and, when FRANC magazine was readily accepted into the 2017 programme, through the accelerator itself.
Briony and Deirdre remain in contact, while FRANC is now an international brand in and of itself, helmed by CEO & Editor-in-Chief Briony, and selling both in Ireland and abroad.
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Are you creative? Do you enjoy solving problems? Ever raised money for a charity or student society? Care about the world you live in and the society you’re a part of? Want to have an impact?
Entrepreneurship in the Arts is a new mentorship programme that aims to activate students from the Faculty of Arts & Humanities to explore innovation and the world of start-ups.
At Tangent, we believe in empowering our students to make a real impact. We want to engage creative and independent thinkers, who have yet to explore the startup world, or have never thought of themselves as an entrepreneur.
mentorship programme
www.tcd.ie/tangent/mentoring/arts/
entrepreneurship in the arts
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We strongly believe that our entrepreneurship programmes are better with a better gender ratio. We are actively encouraging more female students with an interest in innovation, business, or social enterprise to apply for and participate in Tangent’s innovation and entrepreneurship activities.
Statistically, startups with a gender-diverse Board or founding team are more successful than startups without gender diversity, yet despite this we don’t receive applications from nearly as many gender-diverse or all-female teams as we do all-male.
Building on the success of the first years of this programme, we are running Women Who Wow again this academic year. Women Who Wow is a mentorship programme aimed at female students who are interested in setting up their own business or social venture. If you’d be interested in taking part as a mentor, please visit our website.
mentorship programme
Women Who wow
www.tcd.ie/tangent/mentoring/women/
If you would like more details on either Entrepreneurship in the Arts or Women Who Wow, contact Alison:
Contact Alison Treacy
(01) 896 8543
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– Niall & Shekinah
Pay bytouch
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The advent of security threats such as credit card fraud and identity theft means that authentication is more important than ever. The process of authentication we all face on a daily basis usually consists of manually inputting data, passwords, security questions and additional information.
In the eyes of TouchTech co-founder, Joseph Kuye, this is far more time consuming than desired and has become outdated in today’s modern world. TouchTech, a financial technology company launched in 2014 after participation in LaunchBox, looks to change this with what they call TAP (Transaction Authentication Platform).
TAP is an easy to use, two-step authentication system which looks to simplify how we make purchases. With just a quick scan of the now ubiquitous QR code, followed by the use of a fingerprint or credit card, and voila, authentication is complete thanks to the systems Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.
Having progressed from being simply a student’s idea to being a full-fledged company, holding the interest of major UK credit unions, TouchTech’s future is looking bright with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
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– Tommy & Brian
the seapunks
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Tommy Torrades was working as a fisherman off the Norwegian coastline when he got a burst eardrum, likely due to the low temperatures. While he lay shivering at the bottom of the boat, waiting for his fellow seaweed fishermen to finish up so he could seek medical treatment, he had an epiphany – why was he shivering in the hull of a boat off the coast of Norway, when he could be harvesting seaweed at home in Ireland, in relative comfort?
Tommy and his father, Sligomen and proud of it, have a licence for farming seaweed off the West Coast of Ireland. This licence is rare, and takes about five years to apply for. Tommy then asked Brian Sparks to join the company, SeaPunk, when they met on the Postgraduate Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Trinity.
Together they completed and placed in LaunchBox 2018. With this natural, homegrown produce, Tommy, his cofounder Brian, and his dad are making luxury, high-end, organic beauty and food products.
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– Amelia, Will, & Lizzy
worldchanging the
with
pocket change
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Will Conaghan, Lizzy Hayashida, and Amelia Scivier met on the Trinity MBA programme in September 2017. They were on the same project team for the year-long Masters, and during this process came up with the idea for Change Donations.
Change Donations looked at the fundraising challenges that many charities in Ireland face today and proposed an alternative: an app that would round up the price of purchases on one’s debit card to the nearest euro.
Recognising that the two key fundraising systems charities currently use – regular direct debit and one-off donations – are both costly mechanisms to facilitate, Change Donations hope to become an easy way for consumers to donate to the charities of their choice while reducing both the overheads of and the time spent by the charities themselves in chasing donations.
In placing first in LaunchBox 2018, Will, Lizzy and Amelia also became a part of the inaugural Tangent Pioneers programme, participating in an international programme in one of the biggest startup hubs in the world, New York City.
Change Donations are currently participating on the Princes Trust Enterprise Programme in the UK.
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In January 2018, Trinity announced its foundation innovation partnership with Bank of Ireland enabling collaboration to create a distinct entrepreneurship culture among Trinity’s students and create an innovation powerhouse.
The partnership has supported the development of the new undergraduate certificate, as well as the expansion of existing programmes such as LaunchBox and new programmes such as Tangent Pioneers.
The collaboration with Bank of Ireland has been a partnership in its truest form and Bank of Ireland continues to contribute to our programmes through mentorship, guest speaking slots, panel participation, judging of programmes, and programme development.
The partnership with Bank of Ireland has inspired new programmes that would not have been possible without the support of the Bank. Moving into the Tangent Workspace will provide further opportunities with Bank of Ireland and we look forward to collaborating across the coming academic year.
bank of ireland
our innoVation partner
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Undergraduate, postgraduate, & professional
tangent education programmes
Tangent offers a suite of certified and professional education programmes that aim to motivate and inspire students, academics and industry professionals. We provide a space where individuals can collaborate, develop ideas and cross disciplinary boundaries.
The Undergraduate Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, available
to second and third year Trinity students from any discipline, aims to develop
the core skills of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Trinity undergraduate
student population. It is practically oriented with a specific emphasis on project
work and problem based learning.
The Postgraduate Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship seeks
to transform some of the brightest scholars into energetic, resourceful
and entrepreneurial thinkers. This course offers training in innovation and
entrepreneurship not currently available in many PhD programmes and in
demand by most employers.
Tangent’s Professional Programmes are designed to help organisations
and individuals develop new thinking and practice; to shape their future and
recognise the opportunities therein . We offer open courses, in-house training,
masterclasses, summer schools and boot-camps in the areas of creativity,
innovation, design skills and corporate entrepreneurship.
If you would like more details on our education programmes, contact Dan:
To discuss your organisational needs, or our professional programmes, contact Joan:
Contact Dr. Daniel Rogers
Contact Joan Connolly
(01) 896 4830
(01) 896 2498
