IdeasLab launch new student accelerator: Start100?

Start100 – everything starts with an idea ?

IdeasLab is kicking off summer 2022 with the launch of their brand new student accelerator programme. Start100 helps students with an early stage startup transform their ideas into potentially investible innovations. The programme provides physical space, expert mentorship from NUI Galway Alumni and enterprise, skills training and key networking opportunities to students just beginning their innovation journey. ?

Throughout the Start100 programme students will have the chance to hone their business model and connect into a vibrant start up ecosystem in the West of Ireland. Start100 offers students the chance to link with a fantastic bank of NUI Galway mentors and speakers to inspire, advise and support the next generation of entrepreneurs. This programme also links students into the thriving community of innovators and entrepreneurs in the West of Ireland, such as BioInnovate who support and partner with IdeasLab on the NUI Galway campus and Portershed and Galway City Innovation District who run programmes in partnership with IdeasLab. ?

Teams were selected through a competitive process?to take part in Start100, chosen for their unique approach, business model and potential to grow. Over the six week course 9 teams will partake in design thinking sprints and learn about investment and funding terms, the importance of the perfect pitch and what to know when validating an idea. Teams will work together, offering feedback and working on group tasks to enable them to better define and validate their ideas. Each team will receive four thousand euro to support them to validate their idea and help them reach their individual milestones. At the end of the programme the teams will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas in front of a panel of Irish industry leaders. The teams who are ‘most investor ready’ at the end of the programme could win an additional?6,000 euro. ??

The 9 teams selected are working across a variety of areas from medical devices to creative production. Here’s a taster of our student teams and their startup ideas: ?

Receipt Relay - Seán Finnegan & Joe Hennigan ?

Seán is a third year Electronic and Computer Engineering student from Enniscrone, Co. Sligo. Seán started Receipt Relay in first year when entering the Fidelity International FinTech for Good Award with the concept of digitising paper receipts through Near Field Communication. Since then, Seán and his two co-founders have developed Receipt Relay into a customer insights software for retail and hospitality chains using Point of Sale and consumer app integrations. ?

Seán's domain of expertise is operations - constantly dealing with customers, partners, investors and the overall day-to-day running of Receipt Relay. Seán's main focus in the company at the moment is customer acquisition and road-mapping, this focus will shift to fundraising later this year when the team aims to raise a pre-seed round. ?

Joe is one of three co-founders of Receipt Relay. Joe studied Aeronautical Engineering in the University of Limerick. Through Aeronautical Engineering, he learned the fundamentals of advanced aircraft systems, along with the business practices utilised by airlines and aircraft manufacturers alike. These skills proved useful for Receipt Relay as it required software and business management on a daily basis. Joe continued to balance Receipt Relay and studies until January 2022. Following Enterprise Ireland backing, he took a leave of absence from his course to pursue Receipt Relay full-time. Now, he oversees the branding and messaging of Receipt Relay while also running all social media channels and the company website. Joe works closely with Seán on customer acquisition and sales cycle and with Luke on technology development and roadmap. The trio all contribute to the business strategy through weekly meetings. ?

ThoughtGarden - Ahmed Eltayeb

Ahmed Eltayeb is a budding entrepreneur with experience in clinical medicine, medical research, and pharmaceutical environments. He has a medical degree from NUI Galway. He is particularly interested in the direction that artificial intelligence and virtual/augmented reality are heading and their potential in helping solve problems in disease prevention and medical education. During his undergraduate years, he worked as a summer intern in the R&D department of EirGen and has also had the opportunity to spend 8 weeks conducting research at Regenerative Medicine Ireland (REMEDI).

Throughout his medical degree, he experimented with coding, making small games and apps for fun. He quickly saw the power of tackling educational problems using games. Looking toward the future, with the already blooming AI and virtual reality revolution, he wants to make his mark. He aims to build ‘ThoughtGarden’ over the course of 2022. This self-CBT mobile game attempts to prevent and therefore reduce the global anxiety and depression burden by enticing people to recognize cognitive biases, change their negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviours and grow better thoughts to replace them. ?

Scrunch-UP - Cian Coyne

Cían grew up in Leenane, Connemara and studies Commerce in NUI Galway. He started his business, Scrunch-Up, after his Erasmus was cancelled and he had just finished a 6-month internship with WayFair. ?

Cían had experimented with a few business ideas in the past. Before Scrunch-Up, Cían ran a venture called CCFIT (fitness coaching). This never really took off. From CCIT, Cían learned how to make a website, and also that he would get more enjoyment out of selling a product rather than a service. ?

Scrunch-Up aims to reduce cases of drink spiking in a stylish way. Designed to protect users and empower them to make their night out enjoyable and safe. Scrunch-Up was inspired by a product which was originally on the Shark Tank TV show. Although investment was secured, the business wasn't massively successful. Despite this, Cían still thought an anti-spike scrunchie would be a beneficial thing to bring to Galway. So, he made a few adjustments to the product and the business model, and thankfully has seen some success. So far, Scrunch-Up has been made available in NUI Galway, IADT, DCU and St. Angela's Sligo via the respective student unions. Going forward, Cían hopes to further improve the product, increase it's reach and continue to contribute towards charitable organisations.

Matán Marketing - Niall Carey

Niall grew up in Westmeath on a family equine stud farm established in 1867, from which the Irish Grand National Winner, 2022, was bred. From day one, he has lived the definition of “getting your hands dirty” and is ingrained with an entrepreneurial mindset. ?

He is set to graduate from NUI Galway in 2022 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. He spends his week studying, socialising, playing sports, working out, coaching kids and most importantly, helping gym owners realise their full potential through digital media marketing.

He first realised his passion for marketing in his first year of college through his role as a student brand ambassador (SBA) for Amazon Prime Student. He wanted to find a way to develop his marketing skills and combine them with his love for sports, exercise and coaching to create an income. ?

He approached his local gym and offered to take control of their social media. He developed numerous campaigns centred on creating brand awareness and driving revenue. He could see tangible, real world impacts from his marketing efforts and from there, began to grow his client base. ?

Every day is a learning curve for Niall and he knows there is a long journey ahead in business. He is ecstatic to have been chosen for a place on the IdeasLab Start100 programme. He is looking forward to developing his business acumen, discovering ways to scale and working with the other talented candidates on the programme. ?

Tobi Insights - Cormac O’Cathasaigh ?

Cormac is a 3rd Year Biomedical Engineering Student at NUI Galway, with an affinity for problem-solving kindled by a strong entrepreneurial drive. From the age of 15, Cormac spent 4.5 years working side by side with the Managing Director of a rapid-growing retail store, where he was first immersed in the business world. Cormac’s operational role in retail was essential in the growth of his understanding of eCommerce marketing & business development skills. ?

Cormac now owns and operates tobi.ie, the data-driven eCommerce Agency based in the PorterShed. Working with international brands, tobi.ie builds and optimises high-performance Shopify stores. Cormac describes the agency as ‘glorified data analysts’ as opposed to a creative marketing fitout. No ‘guesswork’ or ‘operating on a hunch’, data-driven decisions only, which allows tobi.ie to build some of the highest performing eCommerce ecosystems both in Ireland & further afield. In tandem to this, the agency also implements hyper-targeted email marketing strategies to accelerate brands’ to their next stage of growth, which generally accounts for 30% of companies total annual revenue. ?

In his spare time, Cormac is training for his next mountaineering trip to Argentina in December 2022. If summited, this will be the fourth of Cormac’s notable international climbs, bringing him one step closer to achieving the Seven Summits, a mountaineering feat involving climbing to the highest point on each continent.?

StrokeSMART – Peter Best-Lydon & Ciarán McDermott

Ciarán has just completed his final year of Electronic and Computer Engineering in NUI Galway. He has a great deal of experience in the technical field, having competed in many engineering related competitions in the past. Ciarán led the electronics team in éirloop, Ireland’s only hyperloop team, as well as being a key member of the Geec (Galway Energy Efficient Car) team since first year. ?

Ciarán has worked in a number of start-ups over the years and was a finalist in Accenture’s “Leaders of Tomorrow” summer accelerator program with a glucose monitoring solution for young children. In 2019, he represented NUI Galway at the international EIT MHealth?competition in Spain, with a novel mobile fitness application aimed at promoting good habit forming. He has a keen interest in the areas of mobile app design, embedded systems, artificial intelligence, and power electronics. ?

Peter graduated from Biomedical Engineering in NUI Galway with a first-class honour. He obtained an insight into R&D in industry through his Merit Medical placement. During this time, he saw that research within industry was focused on incremental improvements of existing devices rather than bringing disruptive innovations to the patient. Since then, he has set a goal to make a significant difference in the field of biomedical engineering. The only way to do this effectively was to identify a pressing clinical need and create a start-up. ?

Peter first begun to work towards his aspirations by joining an Industrial Grand Design project to build contacts within IdeasLab. From here, he presented a separate project regarding the treatment of myocardial infarctions to several clinicians, directors and professors which resulted in him getting a scholarship to work within the Translational Medical Device Lab in NUI Galway. ?

During this scholarship, Peter assessed various clinical needs in terms of clinical, technical, and commercial risk with the objective of identifying the ideal clinical need. He identified a clinical need in detecting strokes in high-risk patients. Since then he completed an I-Corps customer discovery program to ensure the correct problem-solution fit was obtained and is actively pursuing several grants. ?

Ciaran and Peter will work on StrokeSMART – a painless monitoring device which empowers stroke survivors to take control of their health by detect sleeping strokes. Within StrokeSMART Ciarán is responsible for the technical side of things, aiming to have a fully working prototype completed by the end of the Start-100 accelerator program. Peter is involved in the commercial side, but he wants an in-depth understanding of the technological challenges faced in the project. Within this Start100 program, he will work side-by side with Ciarán on the prototype development. By the completion of this program, the team will have a functional prototype which will aid in obtaining commercialisation funding. ?

IRIS - Michael Dillon & Keelan Rowley

Keelan Rowley is a final year Project and Construction Management student at NUI Galway with an interest in pursuing a career in project management and entrepreneurship. Keelan has completed several entrepreneurship modules throughout his course and understands how to develop customer focused solutions. He has experience using Pert Charts, Gantt Charts and Lean and Persona Canvases to assist in identifying problems and project planning. These experiences helped develop his problem solving, communication, and entrepreneurial skills.?

From his time working on busy construction sites during college placements Keelan gained an insight into health and safety management through dealing with risk assessment and site management. Keelan also aided in the development of traffic management plans, to direct and control the movement of heavy machinery on site to reduce the risk of accidents. Having come from a farming background, Keelan understands the risks and hazards associated with the industry.??

Michael Dillon is a final year student studying a Bachelor’s of Science in Project and Construction Management in NUI Galway. Originally from County Tipperary, Michael has been involved with heavy transport machinery from a young age and during his studies worked on commercial and residential buildings in an engineering firm with his speciality being safety and accessibility designs. Ambitious, driven and surrounded by great people, Michael’s entrepreneurial spirit has him constantly developing new business ideas that he hopes to bring to market. ?

Michael and Keelan are focused on developing IRIS, a safety device that helps detect the presence of people and animals from machinery like Tractors, Diggers, Dumpers etc. A cost effective device that saves lives and families. ?

Uniq Sole - Dermot Rock

Dermot Rock started his professional life as an Army Officer, having joined the Cadets straight after his leaving cert. After serving in military units across the western brigade of the Irish Defence Forces for several years, Dermot then pivoted towards a career in health by studying for a degree in Osteopathy from Oxford Brookes University. Since his graduation in 2011, he has been heavily involved in the prescription, supply and manufacture of custom foot orthotics for patients with lower limb conditions, as well as athletes looking to gain a biomechanical advantage in their chosen sport. ?

Currently a student on the MSc Innovation and Entrepreneurship here in NUI Galway, Dermot's current focus is on the development of Uniq Sole - an application which facilitates the remote capture of patient's foot scan data using just a smart phone.

Where have you been? - Conor, Madi, Ríain

Conor Byrne ?

Conor Byrne has just finished up his second year of a film and digital media course in NUI Galway. From a young age Conor was always interested in making his own short films. When Conor came to NUI Galway he was given the opportunity to expand his connections and opportunities for collaboration with talented individuals. ?

In the last few years Conor has been expanding his own photography and videography business by creating promotional videos for a wide range of industries. Conor uses his knowledge of filmmaking to create impressive pieces of advertising for local businesses around Galway and Dublin.?

Conor is also IMDB credited as a production assistant for The Three Drinkers in Ireland, an Amazon Prime TV show in which he worked with incredibly experienced Directions, Producers and crew. The production travelled around Ireland to get a further understanding of Irish food, drink, culture and their origins. ?

Where have you been? will delve into the idea of Ireland’s drink culture among students in a house party setting. The film will bring awareness to the mental health issues that surround this culture and these social settings. Conor has a passion for telling stories in realistic environments from personal and shared experiences. After directing multiple films in his university degree Conor will be directing Where have you been? alongside a team of incredibly talented actors and crew. ?

Madison Maha ?

Madison ‘Madi’ Maha is a creative writing student in NUI Galway with a background in animation. Originally from the US her creative ambitions led her to pursue her academic studies abroad and to kick start her company ‘Door 59Productions’. She is the scriptwriter behind the company’s first project ‘Where have you been?’ Madi is also pursuing her own individual career goals to become a narrative designer for video games. In her free time, you can often find Madi baking delicious treats, reading by the beach or playing a bit too competitively at MarioKart with her friends. ?

Ríain O’ Donoghue?

Ríain O’ Donoghue is a Film and Digital Media student at NUI Galway, and occasionally a filmmaker.?Ríain has a wide range of experience having worked hosting and producing a bi-lingual radio programme?Aon Focal Eile?on WLRFM. He also worked with the Irish-Language production company Fíbín in the art department on their programmes?Gailearaí Scú Scú, Nuair a Bheith Mé Mór,?and?ó a Sheáin. Most recently he has worked on the set of the upcoming Irish feature film?Double Blind?directed by Ian Hunt Duffy.??

Before now Ríain had a key interest in active citizenship as a member of Waterford Comhairle na nóg as a member of the team that developed the website Teenspace Waterford and is a co-founder of the bi-lingual arts festival for young people Féile Ealáine Péacóg based in his hometown of Dungarvan Co. Waterford. ?

Ríain is a fluent Irish speaker passionate about all things film and media - from podcasting, to screenwriting, storyboarding, prop-making and finally filmmaking. With his diverse background across the creative fields, he takes great enjoyment from the working process and is really looking forward to working with IdeasLab on the Start100 programme.?

Start100 is funded by the Human Capital Initiative (Government of Ireland) and the European Institute of Technology HEI Initiative. ?