A Dublin-based entrepreneur picked up £10,000 (#12,700) yesterday to develop his business after taking first place in the Coca-Cola National Enterprise Awards.
Mr Tom Tynan's company, Soma HealthCare, was incorporated in August 2000 to commercialise an innovative therapy device.
Invented by Mr Tynan, the device is for home use to give natural, non-invasive, drug-free relief for a broad range of conditions including arthritis, muscular pain and backache.
Because of concerns over foot-and-mouth disease, the full awards ceremony was cancelled in favour of a lunch at which the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, and chief executive and founder of Iona Technologies, Dr Chris Horn, who chaired the judging panel, presented the finalists with their awards.
Second prize and £5,000 was awarded to Mr Stephen Murphy of Cork-based product design and development house Levitat, who developed WheelCrown - an automotive safety device. The judging panel, made up of representatives of industry, State agencies, academia and financial institutions, awarded third prize jointly to Mr Jim Breen, founder of Pulse Learning, an e-learning content development company, and Mr David Johnston, developer of OWJO, a wireless Internet messaging system.
The prize money of £3,000 was split between the joint winners.
The awards programme was conceived by Drogheda-based Coca-Cola and has been developed in association with Dundalk Institute of Technology. The programme aims to promote graduate entrepreneurship throughout the island of Ireland and to encourage the development of untapped entrepreneurial talent, leading to the creation of indigenous business in Ireland, according to its promoters.
Applicants must hold a diploma or higher qualification and have a business idea at concept or pre-feasibility stage. The programme had a series of six special intensive business training modules held in Dublin Castle and a weekend residential.
Participants received individual assessment sessions and met mentors from Enterprise Ireland.
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