10 student business ideas were shortlisted for this year’s awards, ranging from respiratory devices to mushroom-based meat alternatives.
A student duo from Technological University Dublin (TUD) has bagged the overall prize at Enterprise Ireland’s Student Entrepreneur Awards 2025 with their sustainable alternative to commercial plastic water bottles.
Saor Water, developed by Ryan Ormonde and Jonathan Hoffman, offers custom-made aluminium cans for brands seeking an alternative to plastic bottles.
The business, which already boasts Mercedes-Benz and Sculpted by Aimee among its clientele, also provides design, compliance and logistics services for its products.
As the overall winners, the two have won a €10,000 award, as well as mentoring support from the Enterprise Ireland experts and from the competition sponsors, the Local Enterprise Office, Cruickshank and Grant Thornton.
Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com, Hoffman said that the win “still hasn’t sunk in yet”, while Ormonde recommended that students who are considering taking part in future editions of the competition should “just go for it”.
“Even if you don’t make it through, you’re going to have all this experience and meet cool people from it. There’s no reason not to.”
10 business solutions were shortlisted for the final round of this year’s Student Entrepreneur Awards. Of these, three received high-achieving merit awards, along with a €5,000 cash prize.
These include Dundalk Institute of Technology’s Max Crinion Morgan who received the Cruickshank High Achieving Merit Award for RespÉire, a short-term respiratory rate monitoring device designed to assist nurses during patient observations.
David Cashman, from University College Cork (UCC), took home the Grant Thornton High Achieving Merit Award for his business, The WellSchools Network, which offers a trauma-informed model for positive education that supports Irish schools in prioritising student wellbeing.
While Sean O’Sullivan, also from UCC, received the Local Enterprise Office High Achieving Merit Award for his food innovation company Lion’s Reign, which produces jerky using lion’s mane mushrooms as a plant-based alternative for meat.
The six remaining finalists did not go empty handed, with each receiving a prize of €1,500 from the Enterprise Ireland Merit Awards fund.
Last year, former Start-up of the Week JustTip took home the top prize for its cashless tipping platform. CEO and co-founder James Fahy said that “innovation is definitely at the core” of this year’s shortlist of business solutions.
“We’ve seen a massive step up from where we were last year, the standard was already high,” he said. “I think it’s great to see innovation at its finest coming directly from the colleges nationally.”
Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com about this year’s cohort, interim CEO of Enterprise Ireland Kevin Sherry said that the quality of entrepreneurs “just keeps getting better and better”.
“Every single year, you see the quality and the calibre gets better,” he said. “For us in Enterprise Ireland, that’s what we’re about. We’re about trying to help entrepreneurs create and establish businesses and deliver jobs and value. This is just fantastic.”
With additional reporting by Colin Ryan.
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