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"Honestly, I did not expect to win. Having been shortlisted and having the possibility to present my idea was more than enough. I was overwhelmed and speechless.  It took me several hours to realize that I did win a place in the programme. Nevertheless, I am glad that we can develop the idea further and make an impact with the seed funding.”

Ms. Anna Borsotti, a 2nd year student on the BA (Hons) in Criminal Justice Studies, recently represented SETU at the prestigious Enactus CitiGroup pitches in CitiGroup in Dublin. She successfully won a place on the coveted Pathways programme, including €1,000 in seed funding from CitiGroup to bring her social enterprise idea to fruition. She will also receive mentorship and advice from Citigroup over the coming year.  

Anna’s business idea is a corporate social enterprise called Walk Safe and is centred on keeping people (often women) safe as they walk home (or elsewhere) after dark. This is an app that will help people feel safer when walking home alone and has several settings depending on the situation of the user, including a function to call the emergency services such as the Gardai or Ambulance Service. It was an idea developed based on her own experience and the experiences of her peers. 

Anna said of her achievement "Honestly, I did not expect to win. Having been shortlisted and having the possibility to present my idea was more than enough. I was overwhelmed and speechless.  It took me several hours to realize that I did win a place in the programme. Nevertheless, I am glad that we can develop the idea further and make an impact with the seed funding.” 

In order to reach yesterday’s final Anna had already pitched her idea to Enactus judges in order to reach the final. Anna was competing against students from every other university in Ireland and is the first student from SETU or WIT to win a place on this great programme. Her faculty advisor in Enactus, Dr Sharon O’Brien said she represented SETU with distinction and is a great ambassador for the university. 

Enactus is a not for profit organisation that works with third level students in Ireland and around the world.  It holds national competitions in June, where Anna will represent SETU, and the winner will represent their university and their country at the Enactus global competition (the winners in 2022 were UCC).