Two NovaUCD Companies Win 2024 Irish Times Innovation Awards
Two NovaUCD-headquartered companies, Better Futures and Skippio, have today been announced as winners of 2024 Irish Times Innovation Awards. These Awards, now in their 15th year, aim to recognise and promote the best service, product, or operational innovations throughout the island of Ireland.
Better Futures, an artificial intelligence (AI) focused start-up, was named winner of the Design and Manufacturing award category, sponsored by Sisk Group, while Skippio, which has developed an innovative platform to enhance the fan experience at large-scale venues and events, was named winner of the IT and Fintech Award category, sponsored by Mason Hayes and Curran.
Earlier this year Better Futures, which was founded by Anthony Mc Loughlin, began the roll-out of EVATM, a novel AI Assistant Platform for engineers and manufacturers which leverages the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) with engineering accuracy and control.
EVATM (Engineering Verification Assistant) enables engineers to increase efficiency by up to 40%, with instant engineering knowledge retrieval in addition to the automation of creating, checking and updating of documents.
Sara-Jane Pisciotti, Sisk Group with Anthony Mc Loughlin and Bimal John, Better Futures.
(Credit: Conor McCabe Photography).
Better Futures, which has already secured clients in Europe and the US, is currently closing a seed funding round having secured €500k in pre-seed funding earlier this year.
Skippio, founded in 2022 by Daniel Coen, is tackling a common issue at large-scale events, long food and beverage (F&B) queues. The Skippio platform improves the fan experience by allowing the user to order and pay for food and beverages from anywhere in a venue without ever having to join a queue, receiving real-time updates of how their orders are progressing, and once ready they use an express area or lane to collect their order.
By reducing queues and improving efficiency, venues are also seeing significant increases in their overall revenues, efficiency and reduction in waste.
Rowena Fitzgerald, Mason Hayes and Curran with Gearóid Ó Riain and Harry Byrne, Skippio.
(Credit: Conor McCabe Photography).
Earlier this year Skippio secured €540,000 in seed funding, led by private investors with the support of Enterprise Ireland High-Potential Start-Up funding, to scale into the UK market.
Skippio has previously completed the 3 phases of the Enterprise Ireland funded New Frontiers Programme delivered by IADT Media Cube in partnership with NovaUCD. The company was also one of the first Irish start-ups to successfully obtain Enterprise Ireland PSSF (Pre-Seed Start Fund) funding of €100,000.
Daniel Coen, Founder, Skippio
(Credit: Robbie Reynolds Photography).
At the Awards event held today in Dublin, Irish fintech Fexco was named the overall winner of the 2024 Irish Times Innovation Award for its new sustainability technology Pace (Platform for Analysing Carbon Emissions), a bespoke digital platform for aviation emissions analysis. Pace also won the Sustainability Award category sponsored by Skillnet Ireland.
The other winners were Cork-based CergenX, winner of the Lifesciences and Healthcare Award category, sponsored by Research Ireland and Mayo-based Eco Powered Cabinets (EPC), winner of the New Frontiers Award category, sponsored by the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.
2024 Irish Times Innovation Awardees
(Credit: Conor McCabe Photography).
Along with the prestige of winning, the overall winner will receive a UCD Smurfit Executive Development scholarship for three from a selection of their Executive Development short courses commencing in 2024/2025 Academic Year.
ENDS
13 November 2024
For further information contact Micéal Whelan, Communications and Media Relations Manager, UCD Research and Innovation, NovaUCD, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie.
Editors Notes
For further information about The Irish Times Innovation Awards visit: www.irishtimes.com/innovationawards