Picture this… 11 teenagers brimming with nervous energy pace excitedly in the Urban Garden green room, practicing their pitch for the umpteenth time. Hundreds of invited guests pile into Dogpatch’s open event space, eager to nab that front-row spot. 36 young builders wait anxiously in the wings, hyping up their fellow Patchers they’ve spent 6 weeks building world-changing projects with.

Welcome to the Patch Youth Accelerator Showcase 2024.

From the moment 16-year-old Dubliner Rosheen Sharma, one of three teens who spent their summer in Patch creating a system to flag biodiversity endangerment, got a laugh for her first pun, “hedge our bets on hedgerow surveillance”, the nerves in the room simply vanished.

Every August, a group of founders, mentors, supporters, and investors from both home and abroad flock to Dublin’s Dogpatch Labs to watch talented young builders pitch their projects. Projects they’ve been working on all summer. Projects that possibly were only conceived six weeks prior. The atmosphere is supportive and celebratory, but also discerning. The audience isn’t filled with proud parents keen to see what their kids have built (caveat: friends and family are invited to dial in from home for moral support, of course). It’s mostly filled with folks who work with funded tech startups and tend to hold the Patchers to the same high standards.

A lot of pressure on the teens and young adults who are showcasing what they’ve built, right? The growing audience numbers keen to secure a seat are not helping matters either. But wow, did they rise to the challenge!

Rosheen Sharma of Sceach led the way, walking us through how her team uses satellite imagery to monitor biodiversity and flag potential infringements of the Wildlife Act. A Cork lilt graced the stage next, coming from the voice of Nathan Manley, a programmer since the age of eight. Nathan demonstrated how he and his teammates can save time and money for gym owners with Gymificient. Next up was Ellen Quigley, who hit us where it hurts: hurling. The Mechanical Engineering student (with a love for sport) introduced ForceField, a device that slots into the back of a hurling helmet to alert coaches and managers when a player has been hit hard enough that they should be taken off the pitch for a concussion assessment.

Czech entrepreneur Filip Cerny from Funeralbooking pulled on the heartstrings, sharing the emotions of stress and vulnerability felt by his family following his beloved grandfather’s passing. The motivation to create a fair and transparent platform for funeral arrangements was obvious; with which many of the audience empathised. 2023 Young Environmentalist Award winner Toby Tangney from Vexra walked us through his team’s streamlined onboarding process for financial advisors. Who hasn’t had a lengthy experience, right? A no-brainer of a project. Taking up the midway mantle of pitches was Donna Mae Quinto, who introduced Diverseforce, a hiring platform for people with disabilities. Fun fact: when not building at Patch, the Clare 16-year-old is developing a sign language learning app.

Kicking off the second half of pitches with a bang, Liam Fuller convinces us that CartShare will streamline the process of shopping online with friends, giving customers access to free shipping and discounts while introducing stores to new customers. Pitching in the 7th slot was Germany’s Adrian Cipriani who stunned the senses with a bag full of rubbish collected straight from George’s Dock waters. The collector? His team’s DebriSweeper, an autonomous boat that cleans rubbish from urban waterways. Local and city councils – watch this space!

Next up to pitch was Conor O’Neill, who built an escape room game using ChatGPT and DALL·E. But it was his love for coding and golf that inspired his team to create Pocket Caddy, an app that offers swing coaching and on-course advice for amateur golfers. The penultimate pitch came from Cavan-native Harry Leddy, who took to the stage to introduce LogWatch, a logistics tracking and loss prevention system for foresters.

10 pitches down, one more to go. And what a way to wrap up with a Wexford-born technology artist extraordinaire! Kitty Beattie and her four-legged, twelve-geared friend strutted onto the stage to walk us through her team’s journey of building a robot dog, PatchDog. Dogpatch meets Patch meets PatchDog – a paw-sitively fetching startup story.

11 pitches nailed! But Anita Blanchfield, Patch’s newest Managing Director, had an unexpected surprise up her sleeve. After the eruption of applause for the 36 young builders died down, Anita congratulated every Patcher for an incredible journey in the summer accelerator, noting the determination, out-of-the-box thinking, and positive attitude of each participant. To end on a high, Blanchfield announced the launch of Patch Grants;  a €1,000 stipend, and hands-on mentorship for young people anywhere in Ireland who want to build something cool. All ideas are welcome, but the priority will be in areas where MVP costs can be prohibitive (hardware, AI, etc.), products that address a clear market need, and ambitious projects addressing a major global challenge. 

On that positive note, the official proceedings were over. The glitterati of the Irish startup scene was invited to join the Patchers for pizzas, soft drinks, and live demos – typical startup style. Founders gathered around the robot dog, supporters lined up to bravely test the impact-detecting device and mentors took the opportunity to congratulate the teams on a job well done. And just like that… Patch Showcase 2024 was complete.