TCD Postgraduates Are Winners in the ‘Idea to Product Global Competition’ in Texas

Posted on: 04 December 2006

Two of Trinity College’s postgraduates were winners in the recent 2006 ‘Idea to Product Global Competition’ at the University of Texas, Austin.  The PhD students, Wesley Cooper of the Department of Computer Science and Alan Foy of the School of Business came in first place in the competition’s College of Engineering Section and achieved second place overall for their project, Clear Deal in the finals.  Clear Deal is a novel casino surveillance system for the gaming industry.

The TCD entry was sponsored by the TCD Entrepreneurship Training Programme at the Trinity Technology and Enterprise Campus in which Wesley Cooper is a keen participant, and the students were nominated for the competition by the Director of Research for the School of Computer Science, Dr Gerry Lacey and Senior Lecturer, Mary Keating of the School of Business.   The TCD students won in stiff competition from competing universities including the University of Texas, Stanford University, Illinois IT, Imperial College London-the outright winners, KTH Stockholm and the University of Aachen in Germany among an invited field of 18 other competitors from Asia, Europe, USA and Latin America.

Congratulating the TCD postgraduates on their performance, Director of TCD’s Entrepreneurship Training Programme, Dr Eoin P O’Neill commented that: “TCD’s success adds international credibility for the students who work with the Programme during their postgraduate training. The Programme recycles TCD’s own entrepreneurs’ experience for a new generation of highly trained scientists, business people and engineers.”  TCD had previously won the third place in the College of Engineering Section in 2004 with the Crème project, now a campus company.

The TCD Entrepreneurship Training Programme currently involves 20 postgraduates who work voluntarily with external entrepreneurs and internal lecturers.  Mrs Bridget Noone is its executive organiser.