CPC Kilcullen Win All Ireland INTEL Ideation Competition
April 20th 2013
Kilcullen Lions Club are delighted to announce that the winning team of students from Kilcullen CPC Ideation Workshop won the All Ireland final at INTEL on Saturday April 20th. Team members Robyn Kenny, Aaron McLoughlin Sutherland, Bevan Murray, Caoimhe O’Fearghaill, Godwin Jalanga and Wayne Donohoe proved excellent ambassadors for their school as they celebrated their win with TV interviews, photographs and the congratulations of Stephen McGuirke and Lisa Harlow from INTEL. The workshop at CPC was held on February 27 and 28 in the KARE facility beside the school. Facilitated by Clodagh Kavanagh and mentored by Lions Club members Jim Kiely, Joe O’Conner, Annette McCarthy, Siobhan Tutty Bardon, Terri O’Sullivan and Frances Clare, the workshop provided the opportunity for 60 CPC Transition years to take part in a creative and fun two days during which they all worked extremely hard. Transition Year head Glenda Groome, Vice Principle Noel Clare and Principle Catherine Moynihan as well as a number of TY teachers from CPC provided their full support to the Lions and the students to make the workshop a success for everyone involved. Kilcullen Lions Club would like to thank Tullamore Lions Club for their support in running the workshop, especially Tullamore Lion, Paul Bell.
Bevan Murray, Winning Team Member, Tells His Story:
I recently took part in the Intel Youth Enterprise Ideation Camp. In the first round of the competition we competed against other teams from within our school, CPC Kilcullen transition year group. The camp was facilitated by Kilcullen Lions Club member Clodagh Kavanagh and other Lions members and TY teaches acted as mentors. I really enjoyed getting creative and moulding our idea into a final product with my teammates, during the two days felt as if we started with a ball of clay and everyone’s input shaped the clay in a different way, giving us our end product.
We were all very nervous, but confident, about showing our product off to the other teams at the final in INTEL, as the reassurance given to us by the judges and classmates was tremendous after we presented the idea in Kilcullen. I really felt confident about the idea.
Myself, I’ve developed a want to become an entrepreneur in the technology sector in the past few years and I told myself if anything was to come of myself, then I should be winning the workshop in Kilcullen. After winning with my team, I felt I gained much confidence in myself and my ambitions. This confidence was timed 1000 when we won the national final, I feel I am taking a step in the right direction.
I learned much about competing in a team during this competition, I felt every one of us respected each other and our ideas from day one and this made the challenge easier and more enjoyable. Teamwork is important in tasks such as ideation as often your train of thought may “hit a wall”, you struggle to put pieces together and automatically lose confidence in yourself and your idea, but when you have five other people to help and suggest, you will find many more Eureka moments.
I am a very technology oriented person and I offered myself as the “tech” during the initial creation of the teams. I really enjoyed sharing my knowledge in this area with the group and being able to perform the tasks required for our pitch/design. It was during the team pitches in both stages of the competition, that I learned a lot about technology, new applications/programmes, etc.
I learned that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to have confidence in yourself and most of all in the idea/product you are trying to bring forward. Because we were constantly being told how good our product is, it was easy to find the belief.
After getting to be in the shoes of an entrepreneur for the duration of the competition, I really have cemented my goals and ambitions as being one. The rewards does not always come in currency, I have found that using my innovation skills, I, along with my team, really can make a positive difference to another person’s life with this product, it’s humbling to think an idea that came through your brainwaves and onto a sheet of paper, can progress into a physical thing with your hard work and help others….innovation is great.
Winning the final of this competition is certainly an unexpected dream come true. I had no idea that such a competition existed only months ago, if it wasn’t for the Lions club introducing this idea to the school this could easily passed us by and not have opened the opportunities to us that it has. I am really grateful to everyone involved in making this possible for us, although we had to work hard during the competition; others had to work harder in organising the competition and supporting us. I never believed I would be heading to Silicone Valley so soon, I hoped one day maybe a product/invention I had worked on may make it there. I hope it is a place of inspiration for me to work toward my ambitions, as the thought of one day having a successful business listed in Silicon Valley seems a long shot, but only weeks ago, so did winning the Grand Final.
I am grateful to everyone who has made this trip a reality for us and hope you accept our sincere thanks.
Aaron McLoughlin Sutherland, winning team member
Thanks for ALL of you hard work it has really paid off! It was a shock to win the final at INTEL. We knew our product was good but once we saw the other presentations it knocked our confidence. I learned that there needs to be control in a team and order in place. There's no time for distractions that’s why we had to keep ourselves focused. That's what I learned from working in a team. It's amazing that we get to go to America and to Silicon Valley. I have never been, it's great to go and represent our school with a great product behind us. Without the Lions Club or INTEL we would have never have had this opportunity so we all owe our regards to them.
Catherine Moynihan, CPC Kilcullen School Principle
May I say a most sincere ‘thank you’ to Kilcullen Lions Club and most particularly to Clodagh for all the encouragement and support you gave to our Transition Year Students in their preparation for the ‘Intel Ideation Project’ over the past number of weeks. Kilcullen Lions Club are hugely supportive of CPC and contribute to so many initiatives here in the school. The idea for this particular Project came from the Lions Club and involved approx. 60 students at its initial stage. The project was invaluable for all.
It is absolutely fantastic and the ‘icing on the cake’ that a team from Kilcullen were the overall winners of the National Competition. The experience for all of the students involved has been very important - for the ‘winning team’ it’s been fantastic! They not only experienced the ‘Win’ but over the period of the Project they engaged directly in a process of trust, partnership and teamwork – and they reaped the reward! They are superb young people and they were encouraged by, and enjoyed the experience of working with of a superb team of Lions!!
Thank you so much for your encouragement, your mentoring and the expertise you shared with our students. They, and we, really appreciate it!
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