Dawn Kelly and Eoin Caffrey were recently named as the winners of the 2019 Trinity Employability Award, an initiative in partnership with Intel. The announcement was made at a special ceremony at Trinity College which took place on Tuesday March 19th.
In 2017 Trinity joined forces with Intel to introduce the pioneering Trinity Employability Award which is designed to increase students’ ‘career readiness’ for future employment.
This year, 56 students from the Science and Technology disciplines of Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science and Statistics took part in the programme. For the first time this year the initiative was expanded to also include third year students from disciplines in Arts and Humanities. Opening the programme to a diverse combination of disciplines gave students the unique opportunity to work together with a multi-disciplinary approach.
Among the group, 21 first year students of Engineering participated in the ‘First Steps’ module, which involved a site visit to the Intel campus in Leixlip and a career panel session especially designed to give an early insight into the world of work in a technology company.
Additionally, 35 third year students participated in a more in-depth programme to help students develop their skills and experience as well as succeed in the workplace. Students took part in practical workshops led by Intel where they learnt about Model Based Problem Solving, LEAN, and data-driven decision-making. The students also enhanced personal and professional development through thirty hours of extra-curricular activity, and learnt how to critically reflect on their skills and articulate these to employers through a workshop led by the Careers Advisory Service with Student Learning Development.
At the Employability award ceremony, which took place at the Science Gallery, the participants of the 2019 programme shared the outputs of their experience with a panel of judges who whittled down the group to a shortlist of six finalists. The six finalists then made a short presentation to the assembled audience and judging panel, before the two overall winners were announced and presented their awards by Trinity College Vice-Provost Chris Morash and Intel Ireland Research Manager Bernie Capraro. The two overall winning students were Dawn Kelly and Eoin Caffrey, both of who are 3rd year students in the programme ‘Nanoscience, Physics & Chemistry of Advanced Materials’ in the Faculty of Engineering, Mathematics and Science.
All participants who successfully completed the Employability Award programme received a certificate of recognition. The two overall winners received a cash prize of €1,500 as well as a laptop device.
Presenting the students with their awards Intel Ireland Research Manager Bernie Capraro said; “The world around us is changing at an unbelievable pace which in turn is transforming the workplace and revolutionising the kinds of jobs that will be available to future graduates. More than ever a focus on fundamental skills and employability attributes will be vital for students and for that reason we are delighted to be collaborating with Trinity College to support this employability award.”
Speaking about the Employability award Trinity College Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast, congratulated all of the students who participated in the programmes and said; “We want to prepare students for the ever-changing challenges of the 21st century workforce. The Trinity Employability Award has set out to do this, helping our students develop Trinity Graduate Attributes through a combination of training and experience. We are especially delighted to be doing this in conjunction with Intel Ireland”.
Also included as part of the Employability Awards event was the presentation of Intel bursaries to a number of Trinity College students. In total ten Trinity college students, who are currently studying at Masters or Phd level, received the Intel bursaries which were presented by Intel Engineering Manager Paul Hanly. The bursaries include a grant of €3,000 to each student as well as the provision of an Intel mentor. The recipient students were as follows;
- Conor Sexton, Engineering PhD
- Conor Cullen, Chemistry PhD
- Christian Cabrera, Computer Science and Statistics PhD
- Gary White, Computer Science PhD
- Jakub Jadwiszczak, Physics PhD
- Killian Walshe, Physics PhD
- Mihai Sili, Engineering Masters
- Tianchen Zhu, Engineering Masters
- Dale Chen, Engineering Masters
- Robbie Dolan, Engineering Masters
Additional information about Intel is available at:
Web – intel.ie | Twitter – @Intel_IRL | Facebook – Intel Ireland
Media contact: Sarah Sexton | sarah.sexton@intel.com | + 353 1 606 8537