From left: Students Ethan Morrissey, Conor Hall, Kyle Tenkrooden, Daineadh Power, Idowu Akinyimika and Divya Shree Srinivas. Image: Alison Miles
O’Regan is the founder of Zenith Technologies, which was acquired by Cognizant in 2019. He is now backing an incubator programme run by Munster TU.
Munster TU’s student entrepreneurship accelerator programme, Student Inc, kicked off earlier this month at the university’s start-up incubators in Cork and Kerry.
Student Inc has been running annually every summer since 2011. The programme was designed to provide a supportive environment for budding student entrepreneurs.
For the first time ever, this year’s Student Inc participants will be supported by the O’Regan Scholarship programme. This is funded by Munster TU alumnus and entrepreneur Brendan O’Regan.
O’Regan was founder and executive chair of Zenith Technologies, the Cork-based life sciences tech company that was acquired by Cognizant in 2019.
Student Inc runs from June to August and is a full-time immersive programme. It provides participants with access to a network of entrepreneurs, trainers, mentors and investors across the south-west region.
Students also receive €4,000 in cash as seed funding and get free use of Munster TU’s incubator centres, the Rubicon Centre in Cork and the Tom Crean Centre in Kerry.
Speaking about his involvement in Student Inc, O’Regan said he is delighted to “support the next generation of MTU entrepreneurs at the start of their business creation journeys”.
He said he hoped that this year’s Student Inc participants would enjoy similar trajectories to him. He attributed his business’s success to having Munster TU on “our doorstep” and many of the people he employed were local graduates.
This year’s Student Inc programme has 19 student entrepreneurs participating in person as well as online.
Student Inc was first developed at Cork Institute of Technology, but rolled out to University College Cork and Institute of Technology Tralee in the summer of 2019. Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, University of Limerick and Limerick Institute of Technology students benefitted in 2021.
Last year, Cork Institute of Technology and Institute of Technology Tralee joined together to form Munster TU.
All students in participating universities, regardless of their year of study or academic discipline, can apply for a place on the Student Inc programme.
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