Corkman’s fertility tracker app wins him Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur award

A Corkman has scooped a €50,000 investment fund for his business after being named Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur.

James Foody, 24, co-founder of technology firm Ayda in Cork, was presented with his award yesterday at the IBYE national final, held at Google’s European Headquarters in Dublin.

Mr Foody set up Ayda, a female health tech company, just this year after he had finished his masters in biomedical engineering research.

The firm’s mobile phone app is being designed to help women track fertility levels and a wearable fertility tracker solution is also being developed, with a launch likely by the middle of next year. The company has offices in Glanmire and San Francisco.

Mr Foody also received the Best Start-Up award at yesterday’s awards ceremony, in a competition which attracted 1,400 entries.

Other winners named yesterday included the Best New Idea award, with a €20,000 investment prize, which went to Blaine Doyle of GlowDX in Kilkenny, and the Best Established Business award and its €30,000 investment prize, which went to James Keogh from Rathwood in Wicklow. The former is a diagnostics company which is setting out to diagnose neglected tropical diseases more cheaply in developing countries, while Rathwood is a retail entertainment company which has more than 250,000 visitors every year.

Presenting the awards, Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton said promoting entrepreneurship would ultimately create more jobs.