Meeting the future tech entrepreneurs: CoderDojo Coolest Projects Winners at The Lab

At AIB we understand how important it is to showcase the next generation of tech entrepreneurs. That’s why AIB’s The Lab in Dundrum Town Centre was bustling with energy on Saturday afternoon 11^th July. The winners of the Coderdojo Coolest Projects Awards sponsored by AIB, showcased their ‘cool projects’ and were treated to a special guided tour of The Lab including a goody bag. One of the most popular items in the goody bag was the Virtual Reality (VR) Google Cardboard kit, which the kids and ‘big kids’ had great fun with it!

Tech-Entrepreneurs

The winning projects displayed were innovative, creative and problem solving, coming from different prize categories like Games & Websites, Scratch, Evolution, Mobile and Hardware. A genuine passion for technology, games and coding was evident in all the winners. Most of the winners want to pursue technology and game development as a career and are already thinking about where they want to go to college. Meeting these young ambitious tech entrepreneurs was inspiring, read more about some of the coolest projects below.

The Games

Enthusiastic sisters Eabha and Maebh Murphy demonstrated their project 'Follow the worry free road'. This helpful interactive project was born out of a combination of reading childhood tales like ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and helping kids with real life problems. This interactive game leads the user through a series of potential problems and gives tips and advice on how to be worry free.

Aidan Dowling demonstrated his game ‘Space Explorer’ which takes a player from a shipwrecked spaceship to a new planet in a first person perspective environment. Ryan Lynch took us through his Game and Web Games Virtual Reality Maze game which is based on creating a maze around a user’s own environment. Both Aidan and Ryan are keen on finding the right game development course after secondary school to further develop their skills and ultimately their careers in the gaming world.

The Problem Solvers

Identifying the problem of buying a good book to read when pocket money is precious, dynamic duo John David White and Kyle Walsh demonstrated their kids4kids book review website. Currently in beta mode the website is based on user reviews of books and will be rolling out in their school soon!

John Ryan’s ‘Arrive Alive’ app maps out the safest routes to travel in Ireland using RSA (Road Safety Authority) data. The app is user friendly and a real problem solver with international potential. Another international problem solver is Stephen Cushen with his project @timefortown. Based on accessing public transport real time data while utilising social media, @timefortown is an international platform that helps a user get public service information by simply tweeting using a reference code and the app will inform them of the travel options available in real time.

Harvey Brezina Conniffe identified the problem of parents and kids keeping track of each other while on family day trips and came up with the innovative app ‘Family Minder’. Each member wears a device that the app can track so parents know where their kids are via the app, making trips to theme parks and shopping centres safer for the whole family.

A big thanks to all the winners for demonstrating their coolest projects at The Lab. It’s a very exciting time for innovative and creative technology in Ireland!

About The Lab

‘The Lab’ is the first of its kind in Ireland; an innovative banking experience designed to deliver an exceptional customer experience through digital self-service and to create an environment where our customers can learn about AIB’s offerings in banking technology.

The team are found on Level 1 in Dundrum Town Centre and are available 7 days a week to help our customers with their everyday banking needs or to answer any queries about AIB’s services. Customers can experience all of AIB’s existing offerings, test out the upcoming and concept technology and share their opinions on the technology they would like to see their bank use.

The store is open 9am-9pm Monday to Friday, 9am – 7pm on Saturday and 10am – 7pm on Sunday. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to keep up with more public events and demonstrations.

CoderDojo

CoderDojo is a global movement of free, volunteer-led, community based programming clubs for young people. The CoderDojo Coolest Projects promotes and rewards project based learning across six technology categories. This year, 505 projects were showcased in Dublin’s RDS on 13^thJune by individuals aged 7-17 from Dojos across Ireland and Europe.

For more information on CoderDojo and the Coolest Projects, please visitCoderDojo.com.