Three sisters from Co Kerry have won the overall prize at the 2025 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE) for their development of a smartphone app that aims to improve the response by health services in emergencies.
Sisters Ciara (17), Saoirse (15) and Laoise (12) Murphy from Presentation Secondary School, Tralee, were presented with their prize by Minister for Education Norma Foley at an awards ceremony on Friday evening at the RDS.
Their ACT (Aid, Care, Treat) app is designed to improve responsiveness at community level “by integrating crucial features to provide swift and effective aid during critical situations”. It maximises available information to emergency services by providing personal and medical details as well as precise geolocation co-ordinates.
It is the first time that three siblings have won the competition, which is marking its 61st staging. Ciara and Saoirse won the group runner-up prize last year.
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The Murphy sisters won a prize of €7,500. They will represent Ireland at the EU Contest for Young Scientists in September and attend the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, in July.
Ciara, who is in 5th year, said their app significantly improves emergency outcomes by using a repository of available advice and assessment tools, for example when someone collapses.
Over the past year they built a fully functional app that is compatible with other communications systems. “It has been successfully tested, and we have expanded our stakeholder collaborators,” Ciara said.
“They have responded very, very positively. They’re engaging with us on a constant basis. We’re really grateful for their time.”
They include the An Garda Síochána, the Department of Health, the HSE and the National Ambulance Service. The girls, who have outlined its benefits to Oireachtas members in the Dáil, hope it will be adopted by the National Emergency Operations Centre and rolled out across the country.
Having a third sister join the team has helped spread the workload, said Saoirse: “we played to our strengths”. The app is now “way more user-friendly and simpler to use” for people of any age, especially in high-stress emergency situations.
Asked how they get on when working on the project, Laoise replied: “Amazingly.”
Prof Joe Barry, chair of health and wellbeing group judges, said: “The use of this technology has the potential to save lives and reduce recovery times. This project, with the support of the emergency services, has the potential to make a real difference in helping citizens in an emergency situation.”
Tomás Markey (18), a 6th year student at St Brogan’s College, Bandon, Co Cork, won the Best Individual prize for developing a small modular device for capturing carbon directly from the air.
The “PM-DAC” system can remove almost a tonne of CO2 a year more cheaply than similar products. It is designed to be used in domestic settings, or combined with other units for industrial operations. He entered the BTYSTE last year, presenting the theory behind his device. “I spent this year developing the prototype,” he said.
Luke Blackwell (16), a transition year student at CBS Thurles, Co Tipperary, took individual runner-up for a novel approach to regenerative farming by adapting the wild plant comfrey for use as a natural fertiliser that also enhances soil health.
Organic fertiliser can get a bad press, he said, but using comfrey does not reduce yield, is low cost and better for the environment, with less excess nitrates ending up in water. “There is a 10.6 per cent reduction in CO2. I was very happy with that,” he said.
Transition year students Aoife Fadian (15) and Jessica O’Connor (16) at Ursuline College Sligo won the runner-up group prize, after successfully demonstrating how sheep wool can reinforce concrete. The idea for the project emerged from a chat Aoife had with her father, who is a sheep farmer, on possible sustainable uses for wool they had stored in a shed.
The girls successfully blended the wool and tested the resulting product’s strength with the help of a lab at ATU Sligo. “We were shocked by the results, in terms of all-round performance. It’s cheaper to make compared to adding polypropylene, which is high carbon,” Jessica said.
Aoife added: “My father is pleased. It gets rid of a lot of his wool. It creates a new market for farmers.”
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