The Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards programme is focused on supporting students to turn their smart ideas into commercial businesses and aims to encourage and stimulate entrepreneurship by helping third-level students take their first steps towards commercial success.
Among the finalists in this year’s competition were student entrepreneurs delivering cutting-edge medtech devices, sustainable solutions, and pioneering advancements in sports technology. The students were from a broad range of disciplines including engineering, nursing, computer science and business.
This annual initiative by Enterprise Ireland, which invites applications from third-level student innovators, is co-sponsored by Cruickshank, Grant Thornton and the Local Enterprise Offices.
Now in its 44th year, Enterprise Ireland is proud to lead this initiative – supporting entrepreneurs at the early stage of their development is critical to Ireland’s strong and dynamic start-up community.
Ten cutting-edge innovations were shortlisted for this year’s final at a ceremony hosted in Technological University Dublin last week, and Saor Water was named the overall winner of the 2025 Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards.
Saor Water provides a bespoke canned water solution for brands seeking a sustainable alternative to plastic bottles. It offers custom-branded aluminium cans and a low-minimum order service, which includes design, compliance, and logistics, and is already working with brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Sculpted by Aimee.
Ryan Ormonde and Jonathan Hoffman, of Saor Water were presented with their prize by Kevin Sherry, interim CEO, Enterprise Ireland. As the overall winners of this year’s competition, the two Technological University Dublin students won €10,000, as well as mentoring supports from Enterprise Ireland experts and advisers focused on supporting them to develop their products and explore new market opportunities.
There were three ‘High Achieving Merit Awards’ also presented on the day with prizes of €5,000 each, as well as the Enterprise Ireland Academic Award which recognises the contribution of third-level project supervisors, and was this year awarded to Dr Margaret Tynan from Southeast Technological University.
The other six finalists from this year’s competition also received a prize of €1,500 each from the Enterprise Ireland Merit Awards Fund. This year’s winners will also benefit from comprehensive business advice and mentoring supports from Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Office, intellectual property consultancy and protection from Cruickshank and business plan development from Grant Thornton.
As the economic cornerstones in communities across the country, Irish businesses are at the heart of everything Enterprise Ireland does. A key objective in our new five-year strategy, ‘Delivering for Ireland, Leading Globally’, is to accelerate sustainable Irish business so that, in time, exporting Irish companies can become the primary driver of our economy.
Key to this is strengthening our pipeline of early-stage companies with global potential, such as the inspiring innovators from this year’s participants. These awards are a powerful example of how we can foster ambition, innovation, and international success from the very beginning of the entrepreneurial journey.
Teri Smith is the Manager for Local Enterprise Centre of Excellence & Enterprise Europe Network at Enterprise Ireland
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