Ideation NI Thon at NI Science Festival sets out to solve global issues
by Startacus Admin
How do we reduce plastic in our oceans? How can we make the air we breathe cleaner? How can we grow our own food in urban cities?
At one-day event Ideation NI Thon, students will get the chance to solve global and local sustainability, environmental, city and health problems.
Taking place on 13th February 2020 at the UU Magee Campus Great Hall, thanks to Major Sponsor Ulster University, two lucky winning teams will then get the opportunity to take their idea and develop it, or a part of it, into a prototype design in partnership with a number of local tech supporters including Ulster University, NWRC and Kainos.
As part of NI Science Festival 2020 (13th - 23rd Feb 2020) and delivered by startup and tech champions Startacus, this one-day event will take around 240 students from the Derry and Strabane Council area through the journey of conceiving an initial tech business idea, conceptualising a brand, through to presenting their ideas to a number of industry judges - and in only a few hours!
The one-day event, initially supported by The Lab Fund - a grassroots Your Derry initiative, has been further supported by sponsors Ulster University, Evermore Energy, NWRC, The NI Science Festival and Kainos.
With over 200 events taking place over 11 days, the NI Science Festival offers a stimulating and wide range of events focusing on the wonders of science, technology, 
engineering and mathematics.
Alastair Cameron, co-founder of online startup focused platform Startacus, Head of Startup Programmes at Digital DNA HQ, Maserati 100 awardee and a freelance trainer, will facilitate the event, alongside a number of tech mentors and the children will also get to see and test out technology, that they then may wish to incorporate into their tech and digital solutions.
Alastair Cameron explained the wider goal of the event:
“Whilst there will be two overall winning teams during the day, the achievements of all will be celebrated and a number of prizes will be awarded to a number of teams for achievement in each session.
We will then help the two winning teams, if the students so wish, to work with NI educational and industry support to further develop their solutions. Idea making is great, but we are really excited to see how far we can help develop those ideas further.”
Startacus are keen to speak to other tech companies who feel they can also support the 13th Feb event, and to develop the Ideation Thon concept further, and Derry and Strabane Council area schools can also reach out to rachel@nisciencefestival.com to hopefully get involved.
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Published on: 17th January 2020
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