Cork students recognised at creative technology awards 

CORK schools have won four awards at an event which celebrates the achievements of young people in creative technology.

Last weekend saw over 600 students gather at The Foundry in Google’s HQ in Dublin to attend key events as part of Kinia’s Creative Technology Week.

Kinia is an education-focused non-profit organisation and social enterprise which helps educators to equip young people with skills to unlock their full potential.

Now in its 11th year, the week-long festival includes bilingual events and welcomes guests working in all types of youth focussed organisations and roles, including teachers, family resource centre professionals, youth workers and young people aged between 12-18 years.

The events showcase creative technology projects that young people throughout Ireland have been working on all year, in the areas of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Maths), digital media and computer science.

The Kinia Creative Technology Award ceremony, celebrating excellence in a range of digital and STEAM projects, saw Knocknaheeny’s Gaelcholáiste Mhic Shuibhne scoop a Tech Féile award for a project entitled ‘Ríme’.

‘Ríme’ is an app which makes rapping as Gaeilge easier for everybody, by helping to find words that rhyme as Gaeilge.

Gaelcholáiste Mhic Shuibhne student Tony Doherty also won the award for Tech Spacer na Blíana (Tech Spacer of the Year) at the event.

Tony’s teacher, Stiofán Ó Suilleabháin, said the young student had spent every extra minute he had working on the project.

“He did lots of research on the idea and all problems so he could overcome them. In his own free time Tony went to the carpenters’ and mechanics’ yards to find pieces for the wind turbine,” Mr Ó Suilleabháin said.

“Tony is a great guy and undoubtedly deserves this credit for his efforts.”

Terence MacSwiney Community College also picked up an award at the Tech Fest event for their STEAM project entitled ‘Class Connections’.

The project was inspired by a young student who misses a lot of school due to illness, and their class’s desire to create an app for students who are out of school to stay connected with what is happening in school.

Closing out the Cork success at the Tech Fest event, Cork Education and Training Board, supported by Ann Burns, won an award for their project entitled ‘Mater Reality’.

That project saw young people from Sherkin Island create environmental, landscape-based sculptures and drawings which were scanned and incorporated into a VR environment.

The judges said: “This is a superb use of VR, incorporating ‘real-world’ sensory art work and technological methods into a project designed to connect isolated communities and inspire creativity and leadership in young people”.