One of the amazing prizes at our Showcase in 2022 was a workshop to develop and prototype the overall B!G Winner’s idea. On Thursday 13 October four students from St Leo’s College, Carlow and their teacher took a trip to Accenture’s The Dock, their Global Innovation Hub for what was to be an extraordinary experience. Our 2022 Climate Change Award partner, MSD, The B!G Idea and the winning team were all hosted by Accenture at this magnificent global R&D and innovation centre for what proved to be an exciting and memorable day. What started out as a little idea in a classroom was brought to a whole other level with the help of leading innovators, including some of our 2022 B!G Mentors, from Accenture and MSD.
The winning team members of Jessica Korposh, Eva Cooney, Isabella O’ Byrne and Lily Redmond excitedly gathered at The Dock to accelerate and prototype their idea. Their unique and clever idea, called Trash Scan, was to address the issue of fast fashion and support a circular economy, linking local recycling services through an app which rewards users when they reduce, reuse, recycle. The team’s plan is to reward recycling through the use of QR codes and to incorporate recycling instructions on products to promote more sustainable consumer choices.
Steve Labanyi from Accenture was excited to be part of the overall experience: “Accenture worked with The B!G Idea because it’s a superb opportunity for us to connect with students, to help to inspire them, to help to give them an understanding of the skills that are needed across the industry today and also in how skills will need to evolve in the future and how we can help them to do that to evolve their skills to deliver value”.
The team of students also had the wonderful chance to learn more about career opportunities and to see all the skills which they learned through The B!G Idea being applied in Irish industry. This is an invaluable experience for any young person.
In 2022 more than 2000 students were supported by 400 B!G Idea mentors from a wide range of industries and roles such as tech, designers, creative directors, financial advisors, entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, architects, educators, graphic designers, legal experts, marketing and brand specialists and more. These mentors are absolutely vital to The B!G Idea programme and the experience of our students.
We have 4000 students waiting to get started on their own B!G journey in January and we need 800 Mentors to support them! you or your company are interested in getting involved, find out more by checking out the bigidea.ie and clicking GET INVOLVED or emailing hello@thebigidea.ie
