NovaUCD’s Student Enterprise Competition won by HR start-up

NovaUCD competition winners
Pictured (l-r) at NovaUCD are strive team members, Aness Al Qawlaq, Saoirse Kelders and Sean Hughes. Photograph Nick Bradshaw

Emerging HR start-up Strive has won €5,000 after being named the overall winner of this year’s NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition.

Strive is developing an online platform to match students and recent graduates to job opportunities by providing an optimal fit between the individual and the employer using a machine learning algorithm and an intuitive user experience.

The annual competition, based at the University College Dublin (UCD) centre for new ventures, is an intensive four-week mentoring programme aimed at student entrepreneurs.

The programme is now in its 8th year and is run by NovaUCD, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs at University College Dublin. It works as a framework to support undergraduate and postgraduate students who want to work together to develop and grow start-up companies.

Ten early-stage student ventures and 24 participants took part in year’s competition.

The members of the strive team are, Saoirse Kelders, who has just completed her studies in the UCD Lochlann Quinn School of Business, Raena McElwee, who has just completed her studies in the UCD School of Mathematics and Statistics along with Yevhenii Mormul and Aness Al Qawlaq, both undergraduate students in the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Sean Hughes, a graduate of Global Commerce at NUI Galway.

The sponsors of the 2022 NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition were AIB, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers and Xilinx.