Countdown to the 2025 SciFest National Final

The 2025 SciFest National Final will take place this November, opening online with guest speakers on Thursday, 20 November and in person on Friday, 21 November at the Marino Conference Centre, Dublin.

Every year, the SciFest National Final celebrates excellence in STEM innovation in second-level education. In the 2024/25 academic year, 16,000 students took part in SciFest across 148 SciFest@School fairs, 15 regional SciFest@College venues, Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID) and in the Digital Hub for Teen-Turn students. The National Final brings together the very best of these projects, showcasing the creativity, passion, and innovation of Ireland’s second-level students in STEM.

Maura Moore-McCune from Kings Hospital School in Dublin was the 2024 SciFest National Final STEM Champion. Maura’s project titled VIPMOD: Vision Impaired Person’s Moving Object Detector is an innovative app designed to enhance safety and independence for over 2 billion vision impaired people worldwide.

Maura’s win at the National Final secured her the chance to represent Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Columbus, Ohio in May 2025. Through Maura’s hard work and determination, she won 4^th place in the Biomedical Engineering category. There were over 100 projects in this category making this win an outstanding achievement. Maura also won the Mawhiba Universal Enrichment Programme Award. Mawhiba is a non-profit organization in Saudi Arabia which motivates young people globally to explore innovation in a wide range of fields.

The SciFest National Final opens the doors to two further opportunities to travel abroad. One is to the Eskom Expo International Science Fair (ISF) in South Africa, with Addison Carey making history this year as the first SciFest student to compete in person. The Eskom Expo takes place from 6-10 October in Johannesburg. The other is to the Berlin Long Night of Science, an experiential award giving students the chance to visit science institutions in Berlin to attend lectures and demonstrations.

The countdown is on to the 2025 SciFest National Final. It promises to be another memorable occasion celebrating the creativity and determination of Ireland’s next generation of young scientists and problem solvers. If you would like to find out more about SciFest visit www.scifest.ie or alternatively search SciFest on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.