Engineers Ireland has highlighted the critical role that engineers will play in ensuring the Country’s future economic success. Speaking at the announcement of the shortlisted nominees for this year’s Engineers Ireland Student Innovation Awards, John Power, director general of Engineers Ireland, underlined the importance of Ireland becoming a genuine ‘innovation economy’.
Highlighting the need to recognise and invest in the people that will be at the heart of that economy, Power said: “There is now growing recognition that innovation is the engine that will power our economic recovery. But while the enormous contribution of foreign direct investment to Ireland must be acknowledged, it is supporting an innovative mindset across indigenous business, the multinationals operating here and education that must be our highest national priority now.”
The idea behind the awards is to recognise and reward innovation that is taking place in Ireland. The awards this year focus on the long standing Innovative Student of the Year award level 7 and level 8 which is sponsored for the 12th year running by Siemens. The judges include Michael O’Connor from Siemens, Joe Fitzpatrick from IBM and Dr Dermot O’Dwyer from Trinity College.
The entries this year were extremely diverse. In the level 7 category, Sean O’Herlihy from DIT has designed a joystick controlled training car for young disabled children. The purpose of this project is to develop an attractive training device that will assist a young disabled child to master the concept of manoeuvring a powered wheelchair. The base and controls of a powered wheelchair are seamlessly combined with the body of a toy car.
In level 8, Laurence Barry from Cork IT has developed tool to carry out the heat extraction of a chimney flue. The main objective of this project is to design, build and test a heat recovery device for a domestic chimney. The project aims to capture the waste heat from the flue and be incorporated into the water feed tank of a domestic house.
According to Michael O’Connor, marketing manager, Siemens, integral to Ireland fulfilling its potential as a knowledge economy fuelled by innovation will be the supply of qualified and skilled science and technology graduates. “A higher level of engagement of science and technology subjects at primary and secondary school level is now critical in helping to increase the level of graduates in the area.”
The Engineers Ireland Student Innovation Awards will take place in Engineers Ireland headquarters on 21 June.
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