Longford student gallops to national enterprise award with innovative 'Clip Clop Designs'
A Longford students captured the top intermediate prize at Friday's National Student Enterprise Programme awards in Croke Park.
Representing Local Enterprise Office Longford, innovative entrepreneur Caitlin Morris from Moyne Community School is the founder of 'Clip Clop Designs' which repurposes horseshoes to make colourful decorations for the home.
Indeed, Longford has enjoyed significant success over the years in the National Student Enterprise Programme.
Recent national awards have included Best Endeavour in 2022 for ‘Saoirse’s Bakes and Cakes’ from Moyne Community School; while the Best Commercial Potential in 2021 went to ‘Handy Hooks’ from Ballymahon Vocational School; Best Commercial Potential award 2018 was ‘Reel Easy’ from Moyne Community School and 2nd place in the Senior Category in 2017 for ‘J & S Kitchen Aid’ from Mercy Secondary School in Ballymahon.
The McCompactors - Joshua McCormack and Evan McNeil - from Roscommon Community College & Local Enterprise Office Roscommon were the overall senior winners. They've created a device that allows users to easily compact rubbish in wheelie bins. They got the idea for their business called 'McCompactors', after seeing people climbing into wheelie bins to try and compact their rubbish manually.
In the junior category the winners were 'Grasper' from Drumshanbo Vocational School in Leitrim.
Created by students Freya Whitney, Alexandra O'Looney and Amy Keaveney, the hand-held farm safety tool assists farmers with the opening of slurry tank covers.
The Student Enterprise Programme is an education initiative funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country.
In 2021/22 over 25,000 students from almost 500 secondary schools participated.