Westmeath students take part in annual BT Scientist Business Bootcamp

Bootcamp credited with nurturing many of Ireland’s young entrepreneurs

Robert Brennan (17), Peter Kennedy (16), Hugh Murtagh (17), students at Coláiste Mhuire, Grace O'Flaherty and Claire O'Donohoe, students at Moate Community School, are taking part in the annual BT Young Scientist Business Bootcamp this week (March 7 - 10) at UCD.

The BT Young Scientist Business Bootcamp was established in 2010 by BT and is delivered in partnership with Nova UCD to give students the commercialisation skills they need to develop their BT Young Scientist & Technology project ideas into viable business ventures.

A total of 30 students from eight counties, including winners of the 58th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2022, Aditya Joshi and Aditya Kumar, will take part in the four-day event in the hopes of claiming the highly coveted titles of “Best Group” and “Best Individual”.

All those taking part in the Bootcamp this year were participants in the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, held virtually in January, and have been selected from the pool of prize winners shortlisted from special awards, category winners and top four award recipients.

The students will be working throughout the week on six projects, selected by the judges from the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2022. A member of the original project team will work with four other Bootcamp students on their project, and they will develop the idea further based on the workshops they take part in throughout the week.

The students will experience first-hand the world of technology, commercialisation, business propositions and entrepreneurship, with the culmination of the four-day programme seeing the students pitching their ideas to an expert panel of judges.