Chamber - Cork Chamber of Commerce

INDUSTRY + EDUCATION linksCon O’Brien, VP, Student Experience, UCC; Eoin Motherway, BNY Mellon; John Mullins, President Cork Chamber; David Humphreys, UCC; Prof Neil Collins, UCC; and HeatherCrowley, BNY Mellon with (front) Amy Kennedy, Tricia Madden, Grace Tobin and Grace O’Mahony, Mount St Michael Secondary School, Rosscarbery whose project FashionFormula came 1st in the Transition Year Business Project Awards at University College Cork . (Photography: Neil Danton)Future for Business Graduateslooks BrightThe winners of the UCC Transition Year Business ProjectAwards, supported by Cork Chamber with main sponsorsBNY Mellon, were named at a ceremony in UCC on May12th. 40 school teams from the Munster and South Eastregions entered this year’s awards. “Fashion Formula” fromMount St Michael, Rosscarbery was chosen as this year’swinning project. “Memory Fountain” by CBS The Green,Tralee and “net2go - Technonet Ltd.” by St. Brogan’s College,Bandon were awarded with 2nd and 3rd place prizesrespectively.President John Mullins congratulated all that tookpart saying that “The Chamber is pleased to have theopportunity to support these awards in conjunction withsponsors BNY Mellon and partners University CollegeCork. In addition to fostering closer links between thebusiness and academic communities, the awards verymuch correspond with the efforts of the Chamber’sFinancial Services Working Group, which is at the forefrontof promoting careers in the financial services sector in theregion.”The Transition Year Enterprise Awards are an initiativeof UCC’s College of Business & Law. The purpose ofthe project was to get students to write about theirexperience of running a company/enterprise or bank intheir school with a view to encouraging them to considerstudying business at degree level and subsequent careerprogression in this area. This year, students were also askedby the judging panel to demonstrate how businesses canplay an active part in their local economies to facilitatethe economic, educational and socially responsibledevelopment of their communities.”Mr. Eoin Motherway, Head of Ireland Fund Accountingwith BNY Mellon and Chairman of the Chamber’s FinancialServices Working Group, stated that “The quality ofentries into this year’s competition was impressive. Theimagination, ingenuity and overall conversant display ofbusiness, accounting, marketing and presentation skillsby all the teams was eye opening. Distilling the talents onoffer to the eventual team winners was a challenge but oneladen with tremendous optimism and inspiration that suchpromising acumen exists in our schools.”Mr. Motherway continued “The winners are all welldeserving award recipients, having displayed innovativeapproaches to creating and providing products. Thediversity of local and international products was interestingbut it was the technology fluency that students displayedin setting up fully functioning websites and exactinga business use from global social media accounts tocomplement their product innovation that was arrestingin its impact. BNY Mellon are delighted to be associatedwith such a thoroughly positive initiative for the future.It resonates with our focus on innovation and ourcompany values of Client Focus, Trust, Teamwork andOutperformance.”Anne Wallace, Student Recruitment & Liaison Officerwith the College of Business and Law stated that “thiscompetition provides students with an opportunity toexplore both the business and university environments inan innovative way. I am delighted with the record numberof entries received and their very high standard. Thesponsorship from BNY Mellon has been instrumental to thecontinued success of the initiative. I am also very gratefulto Cork Chamber, the Commerce Faculty at UCC andMusgrave Retail Partners Ireland Ltd for their continuedsupport.”Transition Year Business Project Awards kindly sponsored by3CHAMBERlink