We are very grateful to the staff of Ericsson Research and Development Centre, Athlone for extending an invitation to a number of our students for their annual Tech Day on Thursday, Sept. 12th which also formed part of their award-winning INFUSE Programme.
A number of our STEM enthusiasts, who have previously competed in the BT Young Scientist Competition, SciFest and CanSat, got the opportunity to display their projects and speak with industry experts about their research. 2nd Years; Mary Doyle, Portia Quaye and Niamh Riordan displayed their project “Heatstroke Detection Cap”. 3rd Years; Eimear Galvin, Hannah Lennon and Millie O’Brien displayed “Code Red”. While 5th Years; Ashling McCarthy and Aoife McDermott got the opportunity to speak about their national victory and international success at this year’s European CanSat finals in Italy.
The students were accompanied by teachers Ms Maguire and Mr Vinas and the whole group got to enjoy some 
cutting edge demonstrations by Ericsson staff which centred around “Connectivity of Tomorrow” and the possibilities that 5G will bring. The girls also got the chance to meet Dr Niamh Shaw, STEM Ambassador and Artist in Residence at Blackrock Castle Observatory. Dr Shaw was a great support to our CanSat team while in Italy along with staff from AIT’s Engineering Department, who were also at the event.
Thank you to Ericsson for placing such firm emphasis on mentoring the next generation of software engineers and women in tech, and allowing our girls to showcase their skills.