Mayo students win top prize at Technovation Ireland event
Edel Walsh and Orlaith Colleran, students from Mount Saint Michael in Claremorris, have won the Junior category at the Technovation Ireland Regional Pitch Event (RPE) in AMD CityWest Dublin for DiAssist, an app supporting teenagers with diabetes.
They will now go forward to represent their project at the Technovation global semi-final in the junior category.
DiAssist was built during a 12-week Teen-Turn afterschool programme, where Edel and Orlaith learned to code, develop a business plan and pitch to judges alongside other girls in the group.
The girls were inspired to build DiAssist after seeing a close family member live with diabetes day to day. They wanted to design something straightforward to use, with accessible language rather than heavy medical terminology.
DiAssist is designed for teenagers aged 13–19, combining medical self-management tools with mental health support.
The app integrates AI-powered food analysis, blood glucose and insulin tracking, emergency alerts, interactive learning features, and mental health check-ins to provide personalised, non-diagnostic guidance.
"Our biggest help and motivation came from the mentors at Teen-Turn. They were always so encouraging and helped us reach our goals.
"They helped refine our ideas and make our project realistic and the greatest it could be. We are very grateful for all of them and simply couldn't have done it without them," said Edel and Orlaith.
Alongside the weekly programme, Edel and Orlaith took part in Teen-Turn's Super Sessions, which bring participants together with mentors from industry and academia.
The sessions offer hands-on guidance from professionals and a space to refine ideas alongside other young women in the programme.
"We have made life-long friends through such Super Sessions, and had the funnest time working on our project," they said.
Teen-Turn, an Irish charity, has been the regional ambassador for Technovation in Ireland for the past nine years, supporting teenage girls to gain hands-on experience in technology.
Each project builds a functioning mobile app to address a real-world problem the participants see in their own communities.
This year, 67 projects from 9 counties and more than 25 schools were submitted to Technovation from Ireland.