Thirty students get a taste of start-up culture at week-long competition
Life
Pictured (from left)@: Deepta Suresh from Dominican College, Galway; Brian McCabe from De la Salle, Dundalk Co Louth; Rachel Coghlan, Moate Community School, Westmeath; Eve Kennedy from Presentation College, Galway; and Paddy Corcoran from Rockwell College Tipperary
Eve Kennedy, Brian McCabe, Paddy Corcoran, Deepta Suresh, Rachel Coghlan were today announced as Best Group at the inaugural Stripe Business Bootcamp, for their project Reforma: The Reusable Crumple Zone. The project uses shape memory alloys to create vehicle crumple zones that improve passenger safety by absorbing impact energy and returning to their original shape. This reduces vehicle damage, repair costs, and automotive waste.
The Stripe Business Bootcamp, delivered in partnership with NovaUCD, enables students to further develop their entrepreneurial skills through an expanded series of workshops covering presentation techniques, business pitching, and start‑up fundamentals, guided by experts from leading science and technology fields as well as home‑grown successful Irish businesses.
Thirty students took part in this year’s Bootcamp, where they were immersed in hands-on workshops and in‑person learning sessions, including a range of new workshops introduced for 2026.
The competing projects were judged across multiple rounds by a panel of industry‑leading experts, including Dr Tony Scott, co-founder of the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (YSTE); Lucy Molan, head of EMEA start-ups at Stripe; Amy Neale, partner at Delta Partners; and Niamh Donnelly, co-founder of Akara.
Chairperson of the YSTE Board Professor Pat Guiry said: “The standard of projects at this year’s inaugural Stripe Business Bootcamp has been exceptionally high. These students did not just demonstrate the strength of their ideas, they showed their ability to communicate, work as part of a team, adapt and think like entrepreneurs. The judging panel had a very tough task in selecting a winner, and all students should be incredibly proud of what they have achieved over the week.”
Alison Ahern, Head of the Stripe YSTE and Education Partnerships said: “It’s been incredibly rewarding to see the first Stripe Business Bootcamp come to life and to witness the growth in confidence, creativity and entrepreneurial thinking among these students. This initiative is about giving young people the opportunity to take their ideas further and understand what it takes to turn them into real-world ventures. At Stripe, we are committed to supporting young innovators on that journey, and the standard of work this week has been truly inspiring.”
Liam Cronin, Director of Innovation, UCD, said: “Over the last week the Bootcamp supported the talented students in developing their entrepreneurial and commercial thinking required to turn their innovative ideas into potential start-ups.”
Beyond the bootcamp, Stripe’s support for the wider YSTE community continues on the global stage. Next week, the current Stripe Young Scientist & Technologist of the Year, alongside students from the other three top 2026 projects, will travel to San Francisco for Stripe Sessions. They will showcase their exhibitions projects to an audience of international technology leaders and meet with industry experts.
TechCentral Reporters