ActionPoint Annual Award Recognises Innovation and Excellence in Computer Science Students

ActionPoint Annual Award – L-R Colm Le Gear, 1st Place, Mairead Whyte, Business Analyst, ActionPoint, Damien Lee, Programme Manager, ActionPoint, Jamie Mac Manus, 2nd Place.

ActionPoint Annual Award Recognises Innovation and Excellence
in Computer Science Students

Limerick-based Tech Firm ActionPoint today awarded Computer Systems student Colm Le Gear first prize in its annual FYP competition in conjunction with the University of Limerick. The Actionpoint Annual Award, which has been running since 2014, looks for excellence and innovation in computer science final year projects, and is open to nominated 4th year students of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) degrees at UL.

For the Actionpoint Annual Award total prize pot of €1,000 is shared between 1st and 2nd place, following evaluation from a seven-judge panel made up of senior members of ActionPoint’s engineering team.

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The competition has long been a source of high-quality graduate placements for ActionPoint, which provides IT services and custom software to key companies across multiple sectors, including the likes of Chill Insurance, Munster Rugby, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. ActionPoint delivered the online passport renewal project for the Department in 2017, which has recently been extended to include online child renewals.

Colm Le Gear’s FYP was a ‘Lecture Sign-in System’ for use in university lectures, utilising facial recognition to verify a student’s identity. The project was commended by ActionPoint’s judges because of the “seamless nature that technologies were brought together”. The judging panel were also impressed with Colm’s “understanding of modern coding technologies and how modern architecture methods would be best employed”. Jamie MacManus claimed 2nd prize for his project ‘Leduc Hold’em using Reinforcement Learning’.

ActionPoint was founded in 2005 by UL CSIS graduates John Savage and David Jeffreys, who were both awarded the prestigious UL Alumni award in Autumn of 2017. John Savage, ActionPoint co-founder and CTO has fond memories of his own FYP, having developed an open framework for VR which won national awards from HP and Accenture, as well as the QAD Design Competition. John went on to win the President’s Gold Medal in 2001.

FYP recognition was instrumental in the formation of ActionPoint, and so Savage was motivated to support the university and students through the FYP Award. Speaking about the initiative, Savage said; “We have very close ties to the University, as graduates ourselves, and of course, we are located on campus, only a stones-throw away from the CSIS building. Over the past decade we’ve grown to 100 employees and throughout that time UL has been a talent hub that is hugely important to our strategic success. We’re very happy to help engage and support engineers of the future through our FYP competition.”

Headquartered in Limerick, ActionPoint currently employs 100 people. The company recently announced details of a UK expansion, and now has offices in Limerick, Dublin, Galway, Cork, Lisburn and the US. ActionPoint is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Dell Country Partner of the Year 2014 and 2016 and has won the Deloitte Fast 50 award for the past five years in a row. ActionPoint were also recently awarded Deloitte Best Managed company status for the third year running.

ActionPoint was founded in 2005 by David Jeffreys and John Savage and employs over 100 people across Ireland, the UK and the US. It provides custom software development and IT services to clients in many verticals including Manufacturing, Government, Financial Services and now Motor Sports. Its mission is “To help companies achieve their greatest potential using the power of technology.”

ActionPoint joined the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 in 2014 winning further awards consecutively from 2015 to 2018. It also won a Deloitte Best Managed Company in 2017 and 2018. Within the Microsoft community, ActionPoint was awarded Data and AI partner of the Year 2018. ActionPoint was also the first company in Ireland to be recognised as a Dell Certified Partner.
ActionPoint’s key clients include Analog Devices, Johnson and Johnson, VoxPro, Mazars Ireland, Chill Insurance, Kirby Group and Munster Rugby. A recent key project for the ActionPoint team was the eagerly anticipated online renewal system for the Irish Passport Office, a project commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The project won a World Class Civil Service award in 2017 and followed that up with Impact in Digital Award at the Customer Experience awards in 2018.

For more information about ActionPoint, click here.

For more stories about technology in Limerick, click here.