Eight new teams of student entrepreneurs have joined Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) LaunchBox start-up accelerator, which is now in its second year.
Since its establishment last year, the incubator has provided coaching, advice, seed funding and access to the space and facilities in the college’s Regent House, for testing and launching the new ventures with the support of the TCD ‘Angels’, who come from Trinity’s network of alumni and donators.
LaunchBox will also pair these teams up with experienced entrepreneurs, who will coach and provide feedback. Teams will also have access to a range of master classes, covering the fundamentals of starting a venture, and including a range of guest speakers and networking opportunities.
This year’s teams cover a variety of themes, with one such team aiming to develop an app that will allow people to gain fashion insights from their immediate environment. Others aim to produce a growing online repository for quality teaching resources, develop a software-management system for cataloguing laboratory chemicals, and provide an intelligent system for homes that ‘know’ when you need the lights on.
One of last year’s successes is Foodcloud, which developed an app for reducing the amount of food waste. After raising €70,000 in investment, the Foodcloud team expanded its service and signed a deal with Tesco, which now donates its surplus food to charity.
Prof Vinny Cahill, dean of research at Trinity, said the recent successes of the 2013 teams have underlined the benefits of this programme and served to reaffirm Trinity’s commitment to producing graduates that can create jobs through innovation and entrepreneurship.
“LaunchBox gives students the opportunity to nurture their start-ups in an environment that offers guidance and support, while encouraging creativity to create real impact for Ireland,” Cahill said.
Tech idea image via Shutterstock
