Gavyn Pedley, a third-year Entrepreneurship student, has been awarded first prize in the Maynooth University 2015 Student Enterprise Competition for his meat-and-dairy-free vegetarian meats: ‘Boss Burgers’ and ‘Bad Ass Bacon.’
Emerging from a group of 250 students, Gavyn received first prize of €5,000 in the competition, which is run by EDEN, Maynooth University’s Centre for Entrepeneurship, Design and Innovation, and is co-sponsored by McCann Fitzgerald, Bank of Ireland and Enterprise Ireland.
Gavyn has worked in the food innovation space since coming runner-up in last year’s Student Enterprise competition. Earlier this year Gavyn was awarded a €5,000 Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher and was also accepted on the Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers programme for innovative, early-stage start-ups.
Diarmuid Connon, a first-year Astro Physics student is this year’s runner up, having developed ‘FestiBooth,’ a machine that takes ‘selfie’ photographs at social events.
Taking third place was Brian O’Connor, who is studying for his MSc in Design Innovation, with a book-keeping cloud application that aims to cut debtor days dramatically for SMEs.
Reflecting after the Student Enterprise final, Dr Peter Robbins, Centre Manager and Programme Director of Maynooth University’s EDEN Centre, said: “This competition acts as a depth charge, flushing out smart people with smart ideas – drawing them to the surface and creating an innovation community on campus.”
The Maynooth University Student Enterprise Competition is designed to engage a wide cross-section of the student body to develop novel, creative and promising ideas. Throughout the competition students are coached in creative writing, storytelling, sketching, thinking visually and making elevator pitches.