Bosca Glas crowned winners of the NUI Galway Innovation, Creativity & Enterprise (ICE) Competition!
Bosca Glas, a project created by 4 final year students at NUI Galway, won the Innovation, Creativity & Enterprise (ICE) Competition on Friday 8th May in what was a tightly contested final. Bosca Glas scooped the top prize of €2,000 which was sponsored by PwC.
The ICE module was undertaken by a total of 585 students at the School of Business & Economics at NUI Galway. This module gives students the opportunity to innovate in all aspects of business and community enterprise with the support of mentors from local business and community leaders. The challenge is to devise a social business that aims to tackle a real-life social/environmental issue in a profitable and sustainable way.
What is Bosca Glas?
Bosca Glas in simple terms is an outdoor cardboard bank where people can recycle their cardboard and paper at no cost, whilst generating funds for their local club, school or community. Due to the pandemic and a surge in online shopping there has been a huge increase in the amount of cardboard being used worldwide, meaning the project is extremely relevant and timely. The team recognised that ‘the onus and responsibility of recycling cardboard and paper has shifted from the retailer to the consumer’. Essentially the project not only encourages more sustainable use of cardboard and a decrease in CO2 emissions but it also generates much needed funds for communities and clubs in the process.
Where did the idea originate from?
The idea was originally generated by Paul Conneely who worked at a paper-based packaging company as part of his college work placement in 2020. Conneely became aware of the contamination in kerbside recycling and also the shortage in cardboard and paper for packaging manufacturing as a direct effect of the pandemic. Brion Connolly, 21, explains that
“It was from there the team began to brainstorm ways of getting cardboard and paper from people’s homes, back into the manufacturing system. From these brainstorming sessions, via zoom calls, we came up with the idea of the Bosca Glas.”
ICE — Encouraging entrepreneurship
The Innovation, Creativity & Enterprise module is categorised as one of the highlights of the B.Comm degree at NUI Galway. In essence, many would describe it as encapsulating and bringing together the learnings of all modules over the entire Commerce degree into one. Sean Cahill, (21) who streams in Finance as part of the Global Commerce Course, has high praises for the module.
“Not only have we learnt the academic process to follow when developing a business idea, we also got first-hand practical experience of developing a real life business.” The Clare native explained that “the module enabled us to develop an idea and to get out and talk to people - this experience is invaluable.”
The Final
A total of 125 teams entered the competition initially, with the top four teams competing in the final on the 8th of May. Gillian Lowth (PwC) and Brian McNally (Western Development Commission) were tasked with the difficualt job of judging on the day. Bosca Glas was revealed as the overall winner which comes with a prize fund of €2,000 to further develop the idea. Team member, Sean Manogue, who hails from Kilkenny expressed his delight after being crowned winners.
“To say we were absolutely delighted to be crowned the overall winners would be an understatement! It was extremely rewarding after all the work we have put into it for the entire semester.”
Following their victory, the team took time to reflect on how far their project had come over the 10 weeks and just how much it had progressed and developed from their initial idea at the beginning of the semester. However, it was clear Bosca Glas was in it to win it from the off and this determination was evident throughout the course of the module — this was echoed by Dr. Johanna Clancy, Lecturer in Business Enterprise at NUI Galway, who was extremely impressed by how proactive and determine the team proved to be.
Manogue, 21, states “we outlined from the outset that we aren’t here to just ‘tick a box’ and obtain a decent grade in the module, we were very determined to win and we stuck by that and stayed completely focused and driven throughout! It’s fair to say we have come along way having developed our presentation skills and certainly developed our knowledge around our whole idea but we wouldn’t have come this far without the invaluable guidance from our advisors/partners such as Alison McGonagle (WestBIC), Niall Keane (Smurfit Kappa), John Breslin (Boards.ie), Albert Dolan (Galway Cllr), Niall Killalea (City Bin Co.) and Engineer Sean O’Reilly to name a few!
The Future of Bosca Glas
Paul Conneely, 20, explained that “winning the ICE module has certainly drawn the teams’ focus to the next steps that we would like to take with Bosca Glas. The future of Bosca Glas would be best described as having a Bosca Glas located in every community in Ireland, be that in a sports club, Community centre or at a local shop.”
The team plan to initially pilot the project in three defined sports clubs in Galway, allowing to address any technical issues surrounding the Bosca Glas as well as providing a tremendous amount of market research. The aim will also be to smooth out any small issues with the proposed business model and continue on with the implementation of more Boscaí Glas nationwide. The expansion of the network nationally will be a primary goal for the first couple of years, however, the team also plan to expand into the UK/Northern Ireland market and ultimately spread across Europe. As well as the expansion of Bosca Glas, the team will also look at additional services that they may also be able to provide, such as having their own site for processing and baling here in Ireland and be able to directly connect with paper mills.
Conneely, who streams in Accounting and Performance Measurement, continued to say that “the future of Bosca Glas is an ambitious one, however, we do believe that it is realistic and achievable. E-Commerce and Sustainability are major mega-trends of todays world and the green drive backed by legislation such as the European Green Deal will positively shift consumers attitude and behaviour into ensuring that we put our planet first, which is the main purpose of the Bosca Glas.”
Alison McGonagle of WestBIC had the pleasure of mentoring the Bosca Glas team over the semester and she was also extremely impressed by the drive and passion shown by the team. McGonagle believes that the ICE module is a fantastic opportunity for students to show their creativity and that it is a vital link between the academic world and industry especially in the context of these students who are just beginning to embark on their future career paths.
WestBIC are delighted to be involved and support the ICE module at NUI Galway — a special thanks must be said to Dr. Johanna Clancy and all her team for organising such a beneficial and smooth running competition. The calibre of entries indicates that entrepreneurship in the West has a very bright future ahead! WestBIC would like to wish all the students the best of luck going forward and look forward to collaborating again in the future.
