News

Winning ideas from the IT Carlow TATA ‘Dragon’s Den’ Competition

14/06/2013

Leading global Information Technology consultancy, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), teamed up again this year the Computing and Networking Department of Institute of Technology Carlow (IT Carlow) with its TCS Challenge, a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style competition where students’ final year projects compete for a €1,500 cash prize (funded by TCS).  The aim is to produce a business plan for a commercially sound, innovative Information Technology service or product, which addresses an ethical concern in today's society.

Martin Byrne and Karen Haran (HRM - TCS) formed the judging panel at the Institute of Technology Carlow.

A number of groups with the most suitable project submissions underwent a gruelling Q&A session. The project judged most commercially sound, innovative and ethical was one aimed at implementing notification technologies in the waste collection business in order to reduce carbon emissions.  The winning project was undertaken by Andrei Botezatu and Ronan Devoy. They received a cash prize of €1,500 to assist them in bringing their automated Community Alert System to market. During their presentations the shortlisted entrants were given invaluable feedback from the judging panel.

Dr Enda Dunican, IT Carlow said “As programme director of the BSc (Hons) in IT Management  programme I am delighted to see that TCS consider the work we are doing here as worthy of ongoing sponsorship.  It enables our students to get feedback on their projects from  one of the leading IT consultancy companies in the world. I wish to thank my colleagues in the Computing and Networking Department, Ms. Caroline Byrne, Dr Greg Doyle and Mr Gerry Moloney for all of their hard work in supervising these projects and getting them to this stage. We very much look forward to ongoing collaboration with TCS”.

TCS was delighted to set the challenge for the students of the Computing and Networking Degree program this 2012/2013 academic year and looks forward to forging stronger ties with Institute of Technology Carlow in the future.

Pictured: L - R: Karen Haran (HR Manager TCS), Andrei Botezatu, Ronan Devoy (IT Carlow Prize Winners) , Martin Byrne (Business Development Manager TCS)