News

DCU students nominated for major literary and business awards

6 April 2011

Ruth Fay, a DCU Oscail student of Humanities, has been nominated for this year's Hennessy Literary Award.  Her story, 'It's a kind of magic', is her first published work, which places her in the New Writer category. Ruth is studying for a degree in English literature at DCU.

The winners of all three categories - First Fiction, Emerging Fiction and Emerging Poetry, as well as New Writer of the Year, will be announced at a ceremony on 12 April.  The judges are Paul Durcan and Derek Johns under the chairmanship of Ciaran Carty.  Each winner receives a Hennessy trophy and €1,500. A New Irish Writer of the Year is chosen from the three category winners and receives an additional €2,500 and trophy.

All the short-listed writers will attend a gala dinner in the Great Hall of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on April 12, where the special guest will be the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese. A Hall of Fame achievement award will be made to a leading Irish writer whose first work was published in New Irish Writing, the ninth such award.

Previous winners were Dermot Bolger, Joseph O'Connor, Patrick McCabe, Colum McCann, Frank McGuinness, Anne Enright, Hugo Hamilton and Neil Jordan.

Two students from the DCU Business School have also been nominated for this year's Accenture Leaders of Tomorrow Award.  The award aims to identify, foster and recognise leadership potential and innovative thinking amongst Irish graduates, and is designed to nurture and develop innovative ideas or concepts which may positively impact some of the challenges facing Ireland today.

Claire Shanahan, MSc in Business Management and James Bourke, MSc in E-commerce (Business) have developed a business concept called ‘Drivefeed’, a road safety system which facilitates peer-sharing amongst drivers and other road users.  Drivefeed utilizes the current Irish mobile communications infrastructure and GPS technology to provide road users with real-time information relevant to their location and journey. The aim of Drivefeed is to make drivers more aware of their environment, prepare them for what is up ahead and ultimately reduce the number of road collisions on Irish roads.

Six ideas in total have been selected to take part in the final part of the competition, which takes place in Accenture on April 13, where the finalists will present their ideas to the panel of judges.  The winner will receive an internship and a trip to New York tol meet business leaders and an internship within Accenture's consultancy practice.

The six judges are Mark Ryan, Accenture Ireland MD; Marian Corcoran, Head of Business Consulting; Paul Donovan, CEO Eircom; Kim Majerus, CEO Cisco; Bruce Robinson, Former Head of Northern Ireland Civil Service, and Joseph Feehily, Chairman, Revenue Commissioners.