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The Guardian - UK

50 years of innovation: BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition

BTYSE — BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition Photograph: /BT

It is five decades since the first Young Scientist Exhibition took place in Dublin. It has grown impressively since then, with students from across Ireland showing their innovative projects to judges and thousands of their peers in today's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE). Celebrating science, technology, engineering and maths, the BTYSTE provides a fertile environment for new ideas and discoveries, to positively impact society and the economy. Here are some of the people who have made a real impact over the last 50 years of the competition.

1965 winner - John Monahan

The first winner of the BTYSTE was John Monahan in 1965. His project was an artificial stomach that showed how enzymes digest food in the body. He was the founding CEO of Avigen which specialises in products to treat serious human disease and in 2005 he received the Irish American Life Scientist Award.

1979 winner – Jervis Good

After dropping out of school, Jervis Good exhibited ‘The concept of ecopolemiology as illustrated by a preliminary study of the bionomics of the earwig’ and became the BTYSTE winner in 1979. The win enabled him to re-enter the education system, where he achieved his PhD in zoology and he now works for the National Parks and Wildlife Services.

1981 winner – Catherine Conlon

In 1981 Catherine Conlon took top prize for her study of the spider and its adaption to its environment. She went on to study medicine and worked in general practice, public health and is currently lecturing in epidemiology and public health at University College Cork.

1985 winner – Ronan McNulty

Ronan McNulty won the BTYSTE in 1985 with his musical typewriter that printed music while being played. He now leads a team of physicists working on the LHCb experiment at the large Hadron Collider at CERN and has founded the only experimental particle physics research group in Ireland.

1999 winner - Sarah Flannery

After winning the BTYSTE in 1999 with her new cryptography project, Sarah Flannery made international headlines when it appeared her algorithm might be better than the world leading RSA system. Sarah went on to specialise in electronic arts, co-founding electronic games company Tirnua and is currently working in analytics and data visualisation.

2005 winner - Patrick Collison

Patrick Collison won the BTYSTE in 2005 with CROMA: a new dialect of lisp, and went on to win second place at the EU Young Scientists Exhibition and then studied physics at MIT. He co-founded tech companies with his brother John and their latest, Stripe, was valued earlier this year at $1.75bn (€1.3bn).

2006 winner – Aisling Judge

In 2006 Aisling Judge was the second youngest winner ever of the exhibition at age 14. Wth her biological food spoilage indicator, she went on to take third place at the EU Young Scientist Exhibition. She is currently studying biochemical engineering at University College Dublin.

2010 winner – Richard O’Shea

Richard O’Shea won the BTYSTE in 2010 with his biomass fired cooking stove to be used in developing countries. Now in his final year studying energy engineering at University College Cork, he hopes to specialise in renewable energy and biomass energy generation.

2013 winners - Ciara Judge, Emer Hickey, Sophie Healy-Thow

In 2013 Ciara Judge (sister of 2006 winner Aisling), Emer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow won the BTYSTE and the EU Competition with their statistical investigation of the effects of diazotroph bacteria on plant germination. Now in their fourth year at school they spend time promoting STEM to young people.

2014 winner - Paul Clarke

This year’s BTYSTE winner, Paul Clarke, won a once in a lifetime trip to Silicon Valley in California for his project on cyclic graph theory. Paul will meet BT’s innovation team and enjoy a hosted tour of leading enterprises and meet business leaders from some of the world’s largest technology corporations.

BT volunteers

The unsung heroes of the BTYSTE are the team of BT volunteers who make the whole exhibition run smoothly. “Every single year I am amazed and inspired by what these students do,” says volunteer Claire Hanrahan , “They come up with amazing ideas, produce fantastic projects and confidently tell their story to the judges and the thousands of people visiting the exhibition.”