Minister for Small Business, John Perry T.D, recently announced that Enterprise Ireland has launched a major drive to spur entrepreneurial third level students to develop innovative business proposals as part of the Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards competition. This is a great opportunity for ambitious and enterprising students to build a real-world business venture and at the same time be in with a chance to win a prize from the overall €30,000 cash prize fund and €30,000 consultancy fund, which includes a €10,000 first prize.

The Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards, which are co-sponsored by Invest Northern Ireland, Intel, Cruickshank Intellectual Property Attorneys and Grant Thornton, are Ireland’s biggest and longest established student enterprise competition for third level student teams from the whole island. The priority is to get students thinking now about starting their own business as a career option once they graduate. The sponsors also bring their expertise to nurturing the finalists in the competition to commercialise their business by providing them with expert guidance in areas such as intellectual property, market research, finances, technology development, public relations and advertising, all aimed at supporting young entrepreneurs to develop viable businesses and create jobs.

This year for the first time Enterprise Ireland are asking students to submit a video that captures how great their idea is and shows commercial and export potential. Other features of the competition include a website, facebook page, twitter account and pod casts – reaching out to students in the world that they know best. Enterprise Ireland are currently supporting all of the internal entrepreneurship competitions within the institutions on the island of Ireland with a €500 cash sponsorship prize for each college.

The closing date for applications for the competition is 17 March 2014.

For more information visit the award website.