Carbery CogniMed, Love Better and Target Alert Group won awards at the UCC IGNITE Spring Awards and Showcase 2026. The winners were chosen from a group of start-ups that pitched to local businesses and investors.
Carbery CogniMed, founded by David Hall, won Best Business. The venture is developing a system to improve the flow of information in clinical trials, reduce administrative delays, and shorten the time needed to complete trial agreements and bring treatments to patients.
Best Pitch went to Love Better, founded by Dr Eliana da Silva Monteiro. The platform is designed to help people describe problems in their relationships and receive support as they work through them.
Target Alert Group, or TAG, founded by Ruth Hendrick, won Best Business Plan. Its school-focused system supports incident management and alerts, improves response times, and tracks areas such as staff training, medication records and expiry dates.
The awards were part of the IGNITE programme at University College Cork, which supports recent graduates from third-level institutions who want to build businesses around ideas with economic, environmental or social impact. Fourteen start-ups pitched on the night, and six were selected as finalists.
Since its launch in 2011, IGNITE has supported nearly 250 founders. The programme is run jointly by Cork City Council, Cork County Council, the Local Enterprise Offices of Cork City, South Cork, and North and West Cork, and University College Cork.
The other finalists reflected a broad mix of sectors, including healthcare, consumer products and sports technology. Corca Health, founded by Peter David Fagan, is developing an AI-based clinical intake system for mental health and neurodevelopmental assessment, triage and screening, with a focus on reducing waiting lists in Ireland and the UK.
Zuhri, founded by Zuhri Ajibola, is developing a natural skincare range for different skin types, including dry, oily and sensitive skin. Roteq, created by Sam O'Neill and Will Gunnarsson, is building a technology platform for performance tracking and optimisation.
Beyond the finalists, the wider group of presenting companies highlighted the range of ideas moving through the programme. These included The Zero Waster, a sustainable fashion venture founded by Sarah O'Neill, and Safe Assess, a safeguarding reporting system being developed by Katelyn Healy.
Several founders are focused on education and training. Sam Dunning is working on an AI-based tutorial platform designed to tailor learning to individual users, while Nadine Seward is developing virtual reality health and safety training for the construction industry.
Other start-ups addressed student engagement, AI security, injury recovery support and children's publishing. They included Rolla, an attendance management system for students and lecturers; a security layer for AI being developed by Ishaan Arakkal Anwar; Recovery Systems, founded by Sean O Leary; and Noah's Adventure, a children's book series with an existing retail presence.
Programme backing
The annual showcase gives founders the opportunity to present their businesses to potential backers and local companies. For many early-stage ventures, the public pitch is part of the process of turning an idea into a company with a clearer commercial plan.
Eamon Curtin, Director of IGNITE, said the programme is designed to help founders move from concept to investable business. "We at IGNITE are proud to work with these talented people who have come up with really innovative ideas that can be developed into a business with the potential to deliver real social and economic value. At IGNITE, we help them to transform their idea into a business by going through each of the steps including pitching to investors. None of this would be possible without the backing of the Local Enterprise Offices, Cork County Council, Cork City Council and Bank of Ireland, and I would like to thank them for their continued support," he said.