Students to compete for €7,000 Green Dragon development fund

INNOVATIVE students will shortly be competing for Agri Aware’s €7,000 Green Dragon development fund.

Agri Aware, with the support of Bord Bia, AIB Bank and FBD is calling on second-level students of all ages from both rural and urban areas, to look outside their classroom, find opportunities, and apply what they have learned in class.

Students across Ireland will pitch their ideas to the Green Dragons, with the hope of following last year’s winners, Oceana Boost from Clonakilty Community School.

Agri Aware chairman Bernard Donohue said: “Students are full of talent and potential. The Green Dragon provides them with an opportunity to realise this in a fun, innovative way while giving them valuable life experience and skills they can take with them and build on wherever they go in life.”

The goal is to entice our young innovators to develop and implement original ideas for the agriculture, food, environment and health and safety sectors.

Dragons’ Den presenter Richard Curran, who launched this year’s challenge, said: “An initiative such as this is hugely important for young people. It gives them a chance to exercise their creativity along with gaining real entrepreneurial experience while still at school.”

A total of 25 finalists will battle it out at the national final in March 2012 for the highly coveted prize of a development fund of €7,000, in addition to a number of runners-up prizes for students, teachers and their schools.

With support from Teagasc, the Green Dragon category winners will this year showcase their idea at the Euroscience Open Forum as part of the Dublin City of Science in July 2012 at the National Convention Centre, Dublin. This event will be attended by over 6,000 scientists, business leaders and Government officials.

Lance O’Brien, head of foresight and strategy development with Teagasc, remarked, “The City of Science component is a fantastic addition to this year’s challenge giving the category winners an excellent opportunity to showcase their ideas to a European audience”.

AIB agri strategist Anne Finnegan said: “The Green Dragon initiative is designed to encourage idea generation and innovation among students within these key growth sectors of our economy.”

Conor Gouldson, company secretary at FBD, added: “An important element of this, which is always close to FBD’s thinking, is improving both on-farm and other workplace safety and we are greatly looking forward to seeing what novel ideas and fresh approaches our young students can develop for this critical area.”