Congratulations to Ciara O’Brien of the EMBA Weekend year 2 class who won a €5,000 grant on March 27th from the inaugural competition for funds from the UCD Student Innovation Fund to assist with funding her Start-Up, “iSave”.
Ciara’s winning pitch, iSave, is for a new online/mobile product which enables consumers to manage multiple savings targets via a single interface. The product is aimed specifically at the 18 – 35 demographic as these consumers have lost faith in mainstream banks and are looking for more contemporary, flexible ways to manage their finances. Working with the Credit Unions of Ireland, it was found that there is a significant opportunity to partner on this – they are looking for new ways to connect with younger savers, bringing their core values into a more contemporary setting. The UCD Student Innovation Grant will now be used to build a beta launch version of the product to share with a number of Credit Unions.
The UCD Student Innovation Fund in partnership with UCD Students’ Union (SU) awarded a combined sum of €15,500 to student-run Start-Ups, as part of a new initiative by UCD to invest in student entrepreneurs.
The panel of judges heard pitches from 33 Start-Ups in total and following delegation decided to allocate specific sums of funding to the ideas they felt deserved the backing.
A special word of thanks to Bruce Martin who has been a key support to Ciara in winning this prize.
