TCD Alumni Weekend 2016
Marquee, Library Square
26 August 2016
Good evening, all,
And welcome back to Trinity College for the Alumni Weekend 2016. It's an absolute pleasure to see you all here. This is an annual event I always look forward to.
Gathered here tonight are almost 250 Trinity graduates, and you span five decades of conferrals, from 1956 to 2006. Many of you have travelled some distance to be here – from the UK, France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, Portugal, Canada, the USA, Australia, and Israel.
You are graduates of many Schools, representing the college's multidisciplinarity – Engineering, Business Studies, Natural Science, Geology, Computer Science, Literature, History, Modern Languages, Law, Social Science – I apologize if I've forgotten any!
This year we have record numbers in attendance, which is greatly due to our fantastic class champions who volunteered to organise their class groups to come back tonight. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Class Organisers:
- John Stafford
- Howard Harty
- Sean Traynor
- Huntly Lauder
- Tim Furlong
- Edward Sides
- Mary Carter
- Sean O'Sullivan, and
- Richard Porter
And we've many other volunteers here tonight: alumni who are involved with groups such as the Association and Trust, the Trinity Business Alumni, the Dublin University Women's Graduate Association and our international alumni groups in London and Israel. We're most appreciative of the work you do.
I'd like to give a particular welcome to
- Siobhan Parkinson, one of our Alumni Award winners in 2013.
- and also to Sean Traynor (1971 Natural Science) who on 8th August carried the Trinity crest to the South Pole!
- And Professor Paula Murphy, the new Registrar, BA Natural Sciences 1986.
Indeed you're all very welcome and I trust everyone is enjoying a great weekend. It's important to us. Trinity could not be as successful as it is without the active support and goodwill of our graduates.
We regard our relationship with you, our alumni, as life-long and, I hope, mutually beneficial. We now have over 100,000 alumni living in 130 countries, and on my missions abroad, I always make sure to meet as many as possible – frequently at dinners and receptions organised by our excellent alumni associations.
We're fortunate that you're willing to give us, here in college, the benefit of your support, ideas, and experience. In return we hope that you draw strength, both personally and professionally, from contact with your alma mater, and with each other.
I want to take this opportunity to tell you briefly about what's been going on in your university.
I know how interested you are in Trinity's progress because, of course, I'm an alumnus myself. For those whom I haven't yet met, I'm an Engineering graduate, 1987 - so next year it will be the turn of my year to attend this banquet.
I had such a great time as a student that I chose to make my career here, and was lucky that I was able to do so. But I know that wherever I would have worked I would still, as a graduate, retain a strong interest in and concern for Trinity's future direction.
So let me update you a bit on the College's direction, and on recent initiatives.
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This has been a great year for the College. Last October we received the tremendous news that Trinity has produced more entrepreneurs than any other university in Europe over the last five years. The evaluation by private equity and venture capital-focused research firm, PitchBook, is based on the number of undergraduate alumni who go on to create companies that secure first-round venture capital funding.
This was confirmation that our many initiatives to encourage entrepreneurship in staff and students are having strong results. These initiatives include our student start-up accelerator, LaunchBox – housed in the Summer months in the GMB.
And this year we welcomed to Trinity the US campus-based entrepreneurship programme, Blackstone LaunchPad, which supports and mentors students, staff and alumni, regardless of discipline, experience or technical ability.
By acting as a focal point in Dublin city centre, Trinity helps support research, innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity across the Irish economy, and beyond. Soon we will open the new Trinity Business School. You will see construction has commenced beside College Park.
And plans are advanving rapidly for our new Engineering, Environment and Energy Institute, E3. This pioneering institute will bring together researchers from many of the disciplines represented by graduates here tonight including Engineering, Natural Science, and Computer Science, to work with industry to confront environmental and energy challenges that threaten our planet. E3 will be developed along Pearse Street, close to Grand Canal Dock, the centrepiece of our new technology campus there.
This year also saw the launch of the Global Brain Health Institute as a joint initiative between Trinity and the University of California, San Francisco.
The Global Brain Health Institute will help tackle the looming dementia epidemic and improve care worldwide. It aims to train global leaders in brain health by the rapid translation of research in neuroscience and ageing into policy and healthcare practice.
It has been enabled by a remarkably generous donation from Atlantic Philanthropies, the foundation created by Chuck Feeney. Trinity's share of the grant - about 70 million US dollars - is the biggest philanthropic gift in Irish state history.
So these are truly exciting times for the College. Unfortunately I don't have time to tell you about all our myriad initiatives – I'd love to tell you more about, for instance, Trinity Creative Challenge, which is bringing ground-breaking artistic projects to campus, And about the renewal of the Trinity Education Project, and all the other ways in which we're transforming the College to meet the demands of 21st century research and learning.
I know how interested you are in these, and our other initiatives. And some of you, I know, will wish to become more closely involved with projects of your choice.
As I've said, Trinity couldn't operate in the way it does without active alumni support. So many of our flagship initiatives, including the Trinity Access Programme, cancer research, motor neurone research, and the new Trinity School of Business could not have been developed so strongly without generous alumni support.
We're heartened by the effort and resources you put into the university. We want to work with you to make this university the best it can be.
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As school-leavers all those years ago, you chose to study in Trinity. As engaged students, you made the most of your time here. And now as alumni you are maintaining links with your fellow graduates and with the college. You are part of the evolving history of this great institution.
For now, I thank you all for making the effort to come back to the College for this celebration. I know we'll have a great evening, and I hope you continue to enjoy a great weekend.
Thank you.
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