While the judges deliberated on the fantastic work the teams had completed students were entertained by comedians Karl Spain and Sinéad Quinlan. The work completed by all team and students was so inspiring and impressive, solutions varied from interactive interpretive centres, a solar-powered train for Donegal, space travel, with the winning team from St. Columba’s Stranorlar, developing an inclusive, ultra-modern, cultural space for young people in their area. Winning Team: Aine, Michael, and Oran: “We have really enjoyed the DICE programme, and we really appreciate all the help we received and the great insight we got from all the different people we have been talking with over the past few days! Thank you so much for all the help and the opportunity to take part. It has been a wonderful experience!”

After the students updated each other on their progress to date, it was time to turn these ideas into quick prototypes to get feedback on. Students were supported by industry professionals to realise their vision for their product, service or experience. They then reflected on the feedback they received and suggested adaptations they could make to the process and solution.

To kick off day two with a jolt of fun we all thoroughly enjoyed an interactive quiz that would give RTE a run for its money for production values!! The theme for today was Idea Generation and workshops were facilitated to approach this fun stage of the UNIQUE process from as many different perspectives as possible to ensure the most innovative solutions as possible. The sessions were broken up with great workout and reflective sessions from Michael Murphy and Easkey Britton.

After a welcome address from LYIT President Paul Hannigan, we had a busy morning getting the views of what the future holds from a series of fantastic speakers - Sinead McCauley, Donegal County Council, and James Hennessy, The Paul Hogarth Company; Dr Dave Monaghan, Advanced Collaborative Group, Optum; Easkey Britton, Surfer, Scientist, Explorer, and Bashir Otukoya, Associate Professor of Advanced European Studies, DCU and past student of LYIT. This was followed by an interactive workshop on research and understanding your user group by Marta Sikora, Optum Technology, Lead Interaction Designer, and Gareth Crossan, Optum Digital Principal Digital Accessibility Engineer.