Mayo school wins award as young innovators celebrate Creative Technology Week

Jesus & Mary Secondary School, Gortnor Abbey, Crossmolina, were awarded the Podcasting Award during Kinia's Creative Technology Week.

Entitled 'The Gap', the student-led podcast provides regular updates in the school, including interviews with students both present and past who make a positive impact on their school community.

The Crossmolina school was also nominated in a further five categories: Mobile Filmmaking, Robotics, Organisation of the Year, Educator of the Year, and TechSpacer of the Year.

The award was presented during Kinia's Tech Fest on April 25 last – the annual showcase of young digital innovators, celebrating groundbreaking projects in creative technology, smart energy, green tech, mobile filmmaking, podcasting and robotics. The awards were presented in front of a record-breaking attendance of over 1,000 young innovators from across the country in the Explorium, Sandyford.

Kinia, an education-focused non-profit and social enterprise, is dedicated to reducing educational inequality by building digital skills and access to technology career pathways for young people across Ireland. The organisation’s impact continues to grow. Over 428,000 children and young people have benefited from Kinia’s work to date, with 25,606 educators engaged and 3,079 schools and youth centres supported nationwide.

The awards were presented during Creative Technology Week celebrations, which saw a record-breaking attendance of over 1,000 young innovators from across Ireland display their projects as part of a two-day event. Young people attended, engaged in hands-on workshops such as machine learning and AI, and took part in competitions such as the new Kinia Hydrogen Grand Prix (H2GP), where young minds competed in racing hydrogen-powered vehicles.

The past year saw continued growth, with more than 2,000 educators engaged. Additionally, through the wide range of programmes available, 21,821 young people gained access to transformative learning opportunities. Over 63% of these figures relate to students from socio-economically disadvantaged communities and 90.3% of STEM engagement involved girls and young women. Total reach extended to 414 schools and youth services, reinforcing the organisational commitment to equitable access to quality education in every corner of Ireland.

Speaking during the programme of events, Marianne Checkley, CEO of Kinia, stated: “We want to extend a huge congratulations to Gortnor Abbeyfor their entries, including an incredible podcast. It’s fair to say they did Mayo proud and we look forward to continuing to work closely with students and educators in the future.”

She added: “Creative Technology Week continues to be a highlight of the year, both for us at Kinia and also the community of educators and young people attending. We are thrilled to have welcomed over 1,000 attendees this week across the three main events and the addition of the H2GP national final was a resounding success and we look forward to seeing this grow in the future.

“We remain dedicated to reducing educational inequality by building digital skills and access to technology career pathways for young people across Ireland. We are continuing to work towards our ambitious plan of upskilling 50,000 educators and reaching 800,000 young people by 2030, and these events are a huge part of helping us deliver our message.”

For more information about Kinia, their impact and how you can get involved, visit www.kinia.ie.