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DCU students awarded for innovative commerical research projects
Friday 8 September 2006
The first Commercialisation of University Research Student Project Awards took place last Tuesday 22nd August. The awards are for the best business plans for product/service ideas generated from university science and technology research projects and were initiated in order to recognize the contribution of student projects to the university’s research activities.
First prize was awarded to students Darran Kavanagh, Loic Hervot, Will Fegan and Jiyuan Li for developing a cost effective process of creating an electrode that can be used in ammonia detection. The project was undertaken with National Centre for Sensor Research under the supervision of Tony Killard. Already the market information from this project has been to successfully secure grant funding for the project and the researchers are actively pursuing the leads generated by the students.
Second prize went to students Andrew Osborne, Quan Zhou, John Power and Barry Martin for a novel audio-visual feature-based framework, for event detection in field sports broadcast video. This product was developed by the Centre for Digital Video Processing (CDVP), under the supervision of Professor Alan Smeaton and David Sadlier. This software is targeted at the digital broadcasting market, and makes it easy for digital broadcasters of field sports to broadcast highlights of field sports.
The Healthisense breath monitor system which provides real time breath-by-breath measurement of oxygen & carbon dioxide content in inhaled and exhaled breath won third prize. This project was undertaken by students Francesca Feeney, Ronan Flannery, and Robbie Brennan and was developed by National Centre for Sensor Research. It is a lightweight, portable, wireless apparatus that consists of a mask which houses the disposable sensors and communication device, which through the use of specialised software, can be linked to a computing device (PC, PDA laptop etc.).
The projects are undertaken as part of the Innovation and High Technology Entrepreneurship Module on the Masters in Electronic-Commerce Degree Programme. The premise of the projects is that students identify the best route to market for their products/ideas and undertake extensive research on competitors, markets and customers. The objective is to provide students with an understanding of the key issues involved in the successful commercialisation of new technology-based products or services. It also provides scientists with the opportunity to test the commercial potential of their research. Several researchers have used these projects to source funds for continuing research. This year’s winner of the Malin Award, Stephen Daniels, (Director of DCU's National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology and founder of Lexas Research a DCU university spin off) engaged students from this module to undertake preliminary market research and analysis for his business.
The Awards are sponsored by Invent and the Business and Innovation Theme, and are coordinated by Teresa Hogan, DCUBS.
The Special Award for MECT Students was awarded to Donal Foley and Louise Kirke for their work on the idea for FonaTicket during for their Practicum project in 2005. Since then they have represented DCU at the Annual Student Enterprise Awards in Belfast where they came second in the Postgraduate competition. The €3000 Award was used to set-up the business and to buy the much needed scanners to test their product idea. FonaTicket provides a paperless ticketing system allowing cinemagoers to use their mobile phone instead of a ticket. This month Louise and Donal hit the headlines with the successful launch of their product by UCI cinemas for the premiere of the new /Miami Vice/ movie starring Colin Farrell.
For further information contact:
Teresa Hogan, Lecturer in Enterprise Development, DCUBS (teresa.hogan@dcu.ie)
Ron Immink, Invent ron.immink@invent.dcu.ie.