On Tuesday the 4th of June, Student Inc. ;the Cork Institute of Technology led incubator programme for student entrepreneurs, launched across three campuses in Munster for the first time ever.
The Student Inc. programme is designed to encourage students from Cork Institute of Technology,
University College Cork and Tralee Institute of Technology to develop their businesses.Each student entrepreneur receives €4,000 to fund their business, office space and mentoring over
the summer period.
We decided that this week to celebrate the beginning of the entrepreneurial journey of these student entrepreneurs that we would have a look back at Student Alumnus MaryRose Shannahan’s success.
MaryRose Shananhan is a Business Studies Student in CIT in addition to this she is a:
- Business owner
- Student Inc Almunus
- Dell EMC campus ambassador
- Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur 2019 Cork Participant and
- Alumni Ambassador for the CIT
These are her insights into Entrepreneurship, Education and the Student Inc. programme.
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Mary Rose, what does entrepreneurship mean to you?
For me entrepreneurship means a lot of things. It not just about setting up your own business. It’s a lot more than that. It’s about the skills needed to be an entrepreneur.
Its about being goal driven, you have to be determined and you have to be focused.
And I think, probably the main thing that I learned about being an entrepreneur is that you have to believe in yourself and in your product or service and at the same time, more importantly, you have to be able to take criticism.
Can you tell me a bit about your entrepreneurial ventures?
So I suppose my entrepreneurial ventures started when I was 15 or 16 when I first starting working in my aunt’s nightclub, collecting glasses.I learned a lot and have come along way as I am now 21 and managing under-age and over-age discos in O’Riada’s Nightclub in Macroom.
GAN UISCE
The skills that I have learned from this, have been invaluable and I can apply to other projects such as Gan Uisce. Gan Uisce is a project I have been working on as part of the Student Inc. programme 2018. This is where the Rubicon Centre take on students for the summer and they help students develop an idea into a prototype or a business.
So, Gan Uisce is an underarm sweat patch that adheres to the skin. Ultimately it prevents perspiration marks and that horrible yellow staining cause by sweating.
DELL EMC
I am also a Campus Ambassador for Dell EMC. I was on placement in Dell from Feb – August and in August I was chosen, along with five other people from work placement to represent Dell EMC in college when we went back in September. Some activities involved with that would be representing Dell on site, telling students about graduate opportunities and placement opportunities and basically liaise between the students and Dell.
ALLUMNI AMBASSADOR
Finally, I am an Alumni Ambassador. With this position, you meet and greet high profile guests when they come to CIT, you help with Networking events, representing CIT on Campus.
I couldn’t have done any of this without the help of Student Inc. I applied what I learned in College to try and get a position on the programme. I was successful in that and Student Inc helped build my entrepreneurial skills. With the Dell ambassador, I applied skills from working in the nightclub and the skills learned from my college course and Student Inc to the position of Dell ambassador.
What would you say to those out there who are interested in Enterprise and Innovation and are budding entrepreneurs?
First of all I would say, when it comes to something like Student Inc., this is something that I never thought that I would have went for. It was always just something that you see around college or that you hear of people doing but it’s actually something that I would normally ever do myself.
So, you need to be able to get outside of your comfort zone, push yourself more.
We are so used to staying in our comfort zone but we need to do more. Life is so short, you need to have goals and dreams and to be an entrepreneur can be lonely and hard but you need to believe in yourself.
And most importantly like my favourite quote by Dr. Suess says;
“ you have to be odd, to be number one”
