Watch the Young Entrepreneur Awards 2012

Social Gamers Scoop Young Entrepreneur Awards

Three transition year students from the Green Secondary School, Tralee who have created a new social gaming events business were announced as winners of the Young Entrepreneur Programme at a glitzy ceremony in Killarney, Co. Kerry on May 3rd. The students claim that their business makes the antisocial hobby of gaming at home more sociable by making it a competitive public event. The trio were chosen from over 350 projects and 530 second level students who participated in the 5th Young Entrepreneur Programme. They pitched their business - Social Gamers (socialgamers.eu) - which has already made profits of nearly a thousand euros - to over 1000 people at the Malton Hotel in Killarney. CEO of Social Gamers Marsell Fasilov told the audience "There are 340,000 gamers in Ireland and we plan to help them have a great time. Social Gamers is an already functioning business and we are making profit. We plan to find the best gamer in Ireland". His fellow young entrepreneurs have distinct responsibilities in the business - Imbed Abnoun is responsible for marketing and finance. Davin Barrett is in charge of organization and logistics and created a 36 point checklist to ensure that their events reach their high standards. The trio have already snared Microsoft, Smiths Toys and Facebook as sponsors. They plan to have their third event in August in Cork and then to run an event every month throughout Ireland.

Getting to the top was tough - the winning team had to face several grilling sessions with a team of judges including Dragon's Den Star Norah Casey who said that their project showed an exceptional level of skill and enterprise. "These students have marked themselves out as success stories at a very early age. It's the future of Ireland" she said last night. Casey and four other experienced judges challenged the students on the innovation, profitability and scalability of their businesses.

The Young Entrepreneur Programme was founded in 2007 and since then more than 3000 students have studied the year long programme. Students study the learned skills of entrepreneurship and benefit from mentoring from over a hundred local and national entrepreneurs. They participate in two major public entrepreneurship events where they get a chance to pitch their business plan to over 700 people. The Young Entrepreneur Programme was founded by the Institute of Technology, Tralee, Shannon Development and entrepreneur Jerry Kennelly of Tweak.com. There is a separate third level programme which was won this year by Aquaction, a project to create water displays in crèches founded by three students from the Institute of Technology, Tralee. The Junior Entrepreneur Programme which teaches 5th and 6th class primary school students the skills of setting up and running a business is an initiative from the same founders and is now in its second year. More than 1100 students have completed the programme and the winners, Moyderwell Secondary School, Tralee celebrated their win in style at the gala event in Killarney last night.