Student social innovation competition due to take place online

Fifty competitors from 10 universities and colleges across Ireland will compete online this year to become the winner of Enactus 2020, a national competition for Ireland's next generation of social entrepreneurs and innovators.

Issues relating to homelessness, the integration of asylum seekers and environmental challenges willbe addressed by competitors in his year’s competition.

The winners will join some 3,500 student, business and academic leaders from around the world at this year’s Enactus World Cup due to take place in September.

This year’s competition was originally due to take place on 28th May in Chartered Accountants House, in Dublin, but amid continuing disruption due to the coronavirus pandemic, it will now be held online between the 25th -28th May instead.

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Entrants will present their social entrepreneurship projects through a mix of pre-recorded and live video sessions and proceedings will be live-streamed to the Enactus website.

Online

Fiona O’Byrne, Country Manager of Enactus Ireland said, “Like many other events and programmes we were faced with a choice to cancel or innovate and try to bring the whole competition online. Naturally, our choice was to bring it online”.

“Considering the current challenges facing Ireland and the nature of the projects, we felt it was extremely important to persevere through this period and give the students the time and platform they deserve”.

“While Covid-19 and health concerns are very topical, the projects this year focus on resourceful ways to address some of the ongoing social issues in Ireland today such as the integration of our asylum seekers, addressing environmental challenges and tackling homelessness”.

“These projects are more important than ever as issues such as homelessness and discrimination have not gone away. As a society, we must continue to tackle these issues, and now due to Covid-19, we will be tackling them with far fewer resources. That is why Organisers are even more inspired by the projects and are really looking forward to the final presentations”.

Enactus Ireland is part of an international platform dedicated to developing the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders and social innovators.

Students are supported and encouraged to create and implement social entrepreneurial projects which are financially, socially and environmentally sustainable.

Critical

Devin Toner, Ireland International Rugby Player and Enactus Ireland board member, said “I am absolutely delighted to be involved with Enactus and to be supporting the work of this programme.

“Social innovation has never been so critical, and it is vitally important that we support our students with their innovations now as we will depend on them to come up with new ways to tackle prevalent social issues.”.

“This year’s competition theme is ‘Taking Action’ as we believe this summarises the approach and attitudes being taken by our students at this time. Generally, at this stage, they would be in workshops in their universities working as a team and getting clear hands-on guidance from their tutor. This year they must try and stay motivated and complete their team project working remotely”.

“As we approach the final weeks of the competition, it is clear to see the students are really excelling under the new challenge and we are so proud of that.”