LIT Entrepreneurship Students Raise €8K to Charity
Three Irish charities benefited from the entrepreneurial skills of LIT students, who raised almost €8,000 by running a Christmas market event in December last year. Ciara Brolly from Share A Dream Foundation, Maura O’Flaherty from the Irish Cancer Society and Noreen Keane from Down Syndrome Ireland were presented with their cheques by LIT President, Dr. Maria Hinfelaar.
The Christmas Market event, which took place at the Moylish Park Campus forms part of MarketLink Entrepreneur, a multidisciplinary careers, innovation and entrepreneurship programme for students at LIT. Now in its third year, MarketLink Entrepreneur is designed to engage with students on a structured basis allowing for entrepreneurial behaviours, skills and attitudes to be developed on a practical basis. This year the Moylish campus at LIT was turned into a buzzing market centre with an unprecedented 27 stalls including a Santa’s Grotto complete with elves and a bearded Santa.
As part of the project 27 teams of students were provided with seed capital of €150 to develop products which were presented for sale on their market stall. The students participating in the event came from Limerick, Clare, Tipperary, Kerry, Cork, Mayo, Galway, Wexford, Laois, Roscommon, Westmeath and Leitrim.
On presenting the successful 2012 MarketLink Entrepreneur graduates with their certificates, Dr. Maria Hinfelaar, President of LIT said “Entrepreneurship is about building successful businesses that contribute to our domestic and export economies. One of the goals of the LIT Strategic Plan is to encourage learners to consider entrepreneurship as a career option. Active leadership in enterprise development and knowledge transfer is now one of LIT’s goals incorporated into our strategic vision for the next decade. LIT’s Department of Business, through this programme, recognises that entrepreneurship and the growth and development of small Irish businesses is central to economic recovery in the current climate. The enthusiasm and effort from all the students on the day was truly infectious and I congratulate all students and the lecturers involved. The fact that such a sizeable sum of money will now be donated to three very worthy Limerick charities is an added bonus.”
Further information on the MarketLink Entrepreneur programme is available on the L.I.T. website at www.LIT.ie/MarketLink.
Pictured: LIT Students Brian Moloney and Elaina O’Grady getting their MarketLink certificates