Young Entrepreneurs Shine Bright Through Adversity

Tadhg O’Brien, age 17, from Co Louth, defeated stiff competition from over 5,000 young entrepreneurs throughout Ireland, to clinch the Foróige Youth Entrepreneur for 2021 with his Scriptorium pens. Participating in the NFTE Youth Entrepreneurship programme in his school, Scoil Uí Mhuirí in Dunleer, he progressed through a series of local, county, regional and then the national final where the top nine young entrepreneurs pitched their businesses to an expert judging panel.

This year Clive Bellows and Des O’Donohoe representing basis.point were joined on the judging panel by Paul Fagan from ActionCOACH, Declan Power from the Department of Education and Skills, Claire Byrne from Mastercard and Alex Cooney from Cybersafe Kids.

Coming from a generational background of craftsmen, Tadhg makes handcrafted wooden pens from native Irish trees such as Beech, Ash, Irish Yew, and ancient Irish Bog Oak. Every pen is eco friendly and sustainable, being individually turned, shaped, polished, and finished to the highest quality.

He will now go on to represent Ireland at the European Youth Entrepreneur Awards in Switzerland in 2022. Speaking after his win Tadhg said

I just can’t believe it. I’m delighted and so grateful to be given the opportunity to represent my county and Ireland at the European awards in Switzerland, plenty of more pens to be made before then though!

The Foróige Youth Entrepreneur of the Year competition celebrates young people who have participated in the NFTE Youth Entrepreneurship Programme in their schools, youth projects or alternative education providers. The cutting edge, world recognised programme has shown to be successful in increasing school completion and college attendance rates. Given COVID-19 restrictions, the competition and awards took place virtually this year.

The Best Innovation Category was this year won by Fiona Karkia, age 17, from Sligo who designed a contactless traffic light system for pedestrians.
The Ursuline College student used BBC micro bit technology and PIR motion sensors to create the system, taking inspiration from her walks during the early stages of the pandemic, when she thought contactless road crossings would be a better option to avoid having to touch traffic light buttons.

Thanks to the support of our many Patrons and Supporters, basis.point is a flagship funder of the NFTE youth entrepreneurship programme in Ireland and supports the national rollout and development of the programme.

We were delighted to be able to offer long standing Patron Des Donoghue the opportunity to gain first hand experience of the programme by judging the final.

I was genuinely blown away by the quality of the projects and also the quality of the Foroige team led by Caroline!

This programme has impact. It really brings home just how important non-formal education is for a lot of kids and how using a programme like NFTE can allow the non-academic students to blossom, give them a huge sense of purpose and direction. It’s exciting to see just how far these young entrepreneurs can go.