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LAST UPDATE | 10 Jan
THREE SISTERS FROM Presentation Secondary School in Tralee, Co Kerry have won this year’s BT Young Scientists Award.
Ciara (17), Saoirse (15) and Laoise Murphy (12) won the top prize with their project, ACT (Aid Care Treat): App-timising emergency response.
ACT is a medical assistance app designed to support emergency healthcare responses.
It integrates crucial features to provide swift and effective aid during critical situations.
This is the second year this project has been recognised at the exhibition, having previously been awarded Runner-Up Group in 2024.
The sisters spent the past year improving their project by working alongside public and private sector stakeholders.
The app is designed to tackle challenges in transferring medical data effectively and efficiently to the emergency services.
It also has the capability to share precise geolocation co-ordinates.
Once the data reaches the emergency services, there is the possibility for onward transmission to the dispatch control centres, the attending mobile units, and the hospitals in a matter of seconds.
During the project Ciara, Saoirse and Laoise built a working relationship with the Department of Health, the HSE and the National Ambulance Service, together with the Gardai, to maximise the potential of the app.
More than 2,000 projects were submitted to this year’s Young Scientist, seeking a place on the exhibition floor at the RDS in Ballsbridge.
Over three days, 85 judges chose projects that won one of the 200 prizes that were on offer.
A total of 550 projects from 225 schools earned a place on the exhibition floor this year, with ACT taking home the top price: €7,500 and a place in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists later this year in Riga, Latvia.
Also, this year for the first time, Ciara, Saoirse and Laoise as the overall BTYSTE winners will be awarded a trip to the World Expo, in Osaka, Japan.
Professor Joe Barry, Chair of the Health & Wellbeing Group Judges, remarked that the use of this technology has the potential to save lives and reduce recovery times.
Elsewhere, Tomás Markey, aged 18 and in St. Brogan’s College, Bandon in Cork, won the prize for Best Individual, with his project, PM-DAC: A system for removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
PM-DAC is a Passive & Modular Direct Air Capture framework that reduces the cost of carbon dioxide sequestration in the fight against climate change.
Tomás Markey will also be awarded with a trip to the World Expo in Osaka.
Members of the public can visit the exhibition for the final day tomorrow.
-With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper
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Well done
Well done girls, fantastic achievement
@ron Stewart: And they had no help whatsoever from mammy or daddy.
@John Fagan: you must know the family then? Always one begrudger
@Vincent B: No. You’re right. They developed it on their own and linked in with all those services, without any help from the grown ups.
@John Fagan: Maybe download it because you need help !
@John Fagan: Thats how school works John
Brilliant, well done, lovely story and of benefit to everyone!
Excellent…well done.
Huge congratulations, sounds like a brilliant project/ Idea
Congrats
Amazing!! Well done girls future is bright
Congratulations, Girls, on a wonderful life-saving project. Congratulations to all the other winners and to those who entered the young scientist competition.
Also from Kerry … the intermediate group category 1st place were Cathal Fitzgerald & Donnacha Hartnett for their project ” how to use ‘pineapple power’to assist in accelerated burn recovery. Students from Mercy Mounthawk Secondary school, Tralee.
@Joni Hartnett: Another great project, I’ll have to look it up. Well done them
Congratulations.
Well done girls
Well done Girls, and all who competed.
Can’t bate them Kerry girls or the Healy-Rays.
@Ned: Don’t drag those two m0r0ns into a fantastic achievement by the Sisters! They’ve got nothing to do with it.
@DJ D: morons??? They would buy and sell you !
@DJ D: far from moronic, 2 shrewd fellas
@DJ D: That’s a terrible thing to say about two great Kerry men!
@DJ D: YOU TAKE THAT BACK!! YOU’RE ONLY THE BOTTOM OF THE BARRELL.
@Lulu: I don’t think so!!
@Robert Clifford: Did I upset you so much that you had to use block capitals throughout your angry post?!!
Healy Raes are hypocrites who vote against everything in the Dáil then proceed to carry out contracts they have objected to. I hope and pray that neither of them will get near the cabinet. They are an embarrassment
If at first you don’t succeed, try again
Good girls brilliant be used around the world will save many lives keep going girls on to the next breakthrough x
Mandy Downes. Amazing, well done girls. A very proud day for you, your family and school
Sure that’s brilliant. And better than kerry winning the all ireland and Sam, sure they struggle all the time on that
An awful lot of teachers managed to get to dublin for it.
@Setanta O’Toole: Yep. Credit due there also.
This time next year ye I’ll be millionaire’s
Wow, what a fantastic family achievement. Well done.
Well done girls unreal
I think this is a brilliant competition, fair play to all the competitors involved. They all should be proud of their involvement.
I was going to knock down today on my lunch hour as I work beside the RDS but realised that there’s a €15 entry fee for the public. It’s a real shame, but not unsurprising that this is not fully funded by the government and free for all to attend. It’s not like we’re stuck for the few quid it costs to run.
@danny larkin: If there was no charge it would probably be too crowded
Shouldn’t something like this be implemented already in the health services.
@Shane O Mac: it is…. judges must have their heads buried in sand.
I prefer the traffic light kids to win prize. Save lives much needed than this.
@Colonel Gaddafi: But it states in the article that this has the potential to save lives also…..?
@Colonel Gaddafi: nasty comment…shame on you
@Colonel Gaddafi: Wow – hang your head in shame, slagging off three amazing young girls. What have you ever created or made to help save lives?? Sweet fck all is what.
@Colonel Gaddafi: oh the irony, the person who literally cannot formulate a sentence calling a winning invention a shitbit
@Colonel Gaddafi: Always one!
What have you done? F*** all
@Damien O’Sullivan: he probably managed to get this far without ever working a day in its life
Enoch Burke is an Irish legend.
Wow, fair play to them. How do you come up with an idea like that at that age? 3 brain boxes!
Nothing new here though? I mean, well done to the kids. But theres systems all over the world doing this? I think theres even a company in Carlow called Halocare – sends realtime heartrates & blood pressures etc. to your doctor, hospital or whatever. And monitored by live staff.
Well done.
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