Dr Prag Sharma, with Citi mentors Lakshmi Prasad and Joseph Anwana and Team SustainaX
National College of Ireland is immensely proud and excited to be collaborating with Citi Ireland on the first Citi upStart programme since 2020.
What is Citi upStart?
Citi upStart is a student entrepreneurship programme. Before Covid brought it to a halt, Citi upStart ran annually, attracting top postgraduate computing students from across the island of Ireland. Commencing with in-house hackathons that saw only the best proposals from each college get through, teams from leading HEIs earned the prestigious opportunity to work with academic advisers and Citi mentors over the academic year, developing start-up business plans using cutting edge technologies. Finally, each business plan was judged by an impressive panel of industry and academic experts, needing to satisfy a set of criteria that measured both the level of originality and the marketability of the plan. The winning team could truly claim to be the best of the best. National College of Ireland students consistently had a high success rate in Citi upStart.
Continue Reading About Previous NCI Citi upStart Success.
“Having the guidance and support of an experienced mentor can provide a mentee with a broad range of personal and professional benefits, including gaining practical advice and encouragement, as well being exposed to new ideas, and new ways of thinking.” ~ Dr Anu Sahni, Programme Director for the MSc in Data Analytics, AI for Business, and Knowledge Transfer Champion at National College of Ireland.
Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of NCI's School of Computing; Dr Prag Sharma, Head of Citi's Global AI Centre for Excellence; Dr Anu Sahni, MSc Programme Director and KTI champion; Professor Jimmy Hill, Vice Dean of the School of Computing
Relaunching Citi upStart:
Citi upStart relaunched as a joint initiative with NCI, led by Dr Prag Sharma at Citi and Dr Anu Sahni at NCI, on November 6th, 2024, at NCI Spencer Dock.
“Citi upStart was always a great source of inspiration and talent for Citi Ireland employees. We are proud to partner with NCI to relaunch Citi upStart, working just with National College of Ireland students this year. Here’s to a future filled with invention and prosperity!” ~ Dr Prag Sharma, Head of Citi's Global Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence.
The 140 NCI postgraduate students, who registered their desire to participate, took part in a series of in-house idea development workshops, and have been whittled down, through a rigorous process, to a field of 40, so that only the most promising go through to benefit from a Citi mentorship over the 2024/2025 academic year, culminating in September 2025.
“Regardless of whether you become the ultimate winner, I cannot emphasize enough the value of taking part in the Citi upStart programme. It is a chance to thrive personally, academically, and to build potentially lifelong career connections. It is one of those fantastic opportunities that could be the turning point in a student’s academic and professional career. I would like to thank Dr Prag Sharma and all at Citi for relaunching Citi upStart at NCI.” ~ Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of the School of Computing at National College of Ireland.
Mentors come from across all the departments at Citi and had the chance, at the launch event, to chat with teams, to see how their skills and insights might apply and which ideas most interested them.
Citi mentors: left to right, back to front, James McDonagh, Paul O’Reilly, Prag Sharma, Conor O’Shea, Nikhil Navagram, Tom Cullen, Gavin Hall, Lakshmi Prasad, Joseph Anwana, Anna Bednarska, Claire Wright, Mihaela Wilson, Preity Gupta, Clare McEvoy, Halima Chukur, Pooka Deshmukh, Andrea Ciocas, Sneha Lavnis, Dalia Nassar
Ones to watch:
The final 8 teams, each made up of 5 students, were announced at the launch event, revealing the topics they’ll explore with their mentors over the coming months:
Team Globa Connectors– AI-driven matching for highly-skilled immigrant jobseekers.
Team DynAImic – AI-driven energy monitoring service, to reduce waste and emissions in the chemical sector.
Team EcoCatalysts – digital donations card for financially excluded people.
Team Ingenium Victoris – SkillSwap enables skill exchange via a credit system, offering accessible learning and mentorship without financial barriers.
Team NexAI – AI-powered open banking platform offering personalised financial guidance for youth underserved by the banking sector.
Team NextGen Brigade – Eco-focused app for tracking carbon and recycling, delivering education and generating sustainable community engagement.
Team SustainaX – app providing migrants with resources, support, and emergency contacts, to promote safe integration.
Team Unicorn – app to help prevent food waste and ensure food security.
Dr Anu Sahni stated: “None of this would be possible without strong contributions from many people on both the Citi and NCI sides. I’d particularly like to acknowledge Vice President of NCI, Professor Jimmy Hill, Dean of the School of Computing, Professor Paul Stynes, and Commercial Manager and TTO, Bertie Kelly. I’m grateful to so many of my colleagues in the School of Computing, including Dr Rohit Verma, Michael Bradford, Dr Abdul Shahid, Vikas Sahni, Arundev Vamadevan; Joel Aleburu; Dr Muslim Jameel Syed, Victor del Rosal and many more. I’d also like to thank our Marketing team, especially Teresa Murray and Kate O’Brien, for their continued support of NCI’s Knowledge Transfer initiatives.”
NCI faculty and staff working the room with Citi mentors and upStart teams
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