Rohaan Bhatnagar being presented with his Innovation Award in the Intermediate Category pictured with Terry Smith from Enterprise Ireland and Kieran Comerford who is the Head of the LEO Network.

Local students shine at Student Enterprise finals

Noelle Finegan

Published: Thu 15 May 2025, 3:48 PM

Last updated: Thu 15 May 2025, 4:30 PM

A student of St Patrick's Classical School, Navan, has picked up two awards at the Student Enterprise Programme National Finals. The awards, which celebrate Ireland’s finest young student entrepreneurs, took place last Thursday, 7th May, in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.

Rohaan Bhatnagar of 'FutureDev', supported by his teacher Gareth McMahon, won the overall Intellectual Property Award across all categories as well as the Innovation Award in the Intermediate Category. Rohaan’s business concept is a chat bot app similar to the likes of AI Chat GPT application.

Meanwhile, 'Stud Savers' from St Olivers, Oldcastle, took third place in the Junior Category at the national finals. The students involved in this enterprise were, Ben Smith, Nathan McEnroe and Aidan Clarke who worked under the guidance of their teacher, Elaine Smith. 'Stud Savers' provides protective cover for studs on sports footwear and they are already achieving great numbers in sales.

Supported by Local Enterprise Office Co Meath, the Meath students continued in winning ways of recent years to see three awards go to the county. Last year the overall student enterprise of the year for 2024 went to Sean Finnegan of St Patrick's Classical School for his 'High Lift' business. The idea created by Sean and his business Finnegan Fabrication, manufactures portable cranes that can be fitted to the interior of commercial vans to help those in construction and similar industries to lift heavy materials in and out.

There was also great excitement in Mullingar last week as previous student enterprise participants Kate and Annie Madden from Summerhill and owners of 'Fenu Health' picking up the coveted Alumni award. This award is in recognition of their achievements and success to date with their animal health products now shipping across 15 different countries, with over 1,000 customers including five royal families.

The event was hosted by broadcasters Rick O’Shea and Louise Cantillon and they were joined during the ceremony by Peter Burke, TD Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

There were 85 student businesses in contention across three main categories for the Ffinal in what is Ireland’s largest entrepreneurship programme for second level students. The initiative, funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country, saw over 30,000 students from 500 secondary schools across the country take part.

The 'Stud Savers' team from St Oliver's Post Primary School, Oldcastle.

Kieran Kehoe, Chief Executive of Meath County Council said: “It is inspiring to see the creativity and determination demonstrated by the students in this programme. Programmes like this play a vital role in nurturing the next generation of innovators and leaders and it is wonderful to see such entrepreneurial talent emerging here in Meath.”

Joe English Head of Enterprise LEO Meath said: “Year on year the Student Enterprise Programme continues to showcase the very best of Irish ingenuity and entrepreneurship amongst our secondary school students. From our class of 24/25 we hope to see some of our next great wave of Irish business leaders and global entrepreneurs emerge and that they too receive the recognition similar to that of Fenu Health in the years to come.”