A NEW SYSTEM allowing library users to take responsibility for checking out and returning their books has won this year’s Accenture Leaders of Tomorrow award.
The SIAR Book Pod system, developed by Peter Cleary, a MBS Business Economics student at University College Cork (UCC), claims to greatly improve efficiency for staff as they no longer have to re-shelve returned books.
Cleary will now participate in Accenture’s “global leadership experience”, a two-part prize involving a trip to New York City and a six-month leadership development internship at Accenture Ireland.
There were five runners-up in this year’s awards. Ryan Campbell, Stephen Jameson, and Michael Russell of DCU came up with a concept whereby every seat within any arena at a concert or sporting event would have a unique barcode. Attendees would then simply scan the barcode with a specially created mobile phone app, allowing them to order and pay for their food and drinks during the event through the app and get it delivered to their seat at a time that suits them.
Rebecca Kilbane of Trinity College Dublin reached the final with a plan for wear2shop.com, a bespoke social-media platform for the fashion industry. It would offer a marketing platform for emerging and established Irish fashion designers and fashion boutiques to generate revenue online and promote their brands in the domestic and global market.
Conor Coyle and Colm Fallon, DCU created Smart Security, offering real-time monitoring of a person’s existing alarm system, sending alerts directly to their smartphone when the alarm activates. Users would be able to access live camera feeds of their premises and avoid “false alarms”.
Kevin Rooney of NUI Maynooth proposed the Tourist Quick Route App, that computes the shortest path between a user’s chosen tourist destinations, with the aim of allowing them visit more attractions in an often limited timeframe.
Kieran Desmond of UCC created Minerva, an emergency service dispatch and location system concept that enables users to communicate their exact location to the emergency services operator via mobile technology.
Announcing the winner at an awards ceremony last Thursday evening, Mark Ryan of Accenture Ireland said: “We are now in the fifth year of this award scheme and what started out as an initiative to find the brightest and best talent has also turned into a search for individuals with the most innovative and commercially viable business concepts, who are a shining light for all this country has to offer.”
