Pride of the Northside

MESSAGES of congratulations are continuing to flood in for Paul Clarke, the St Paul’s College Raheny student who was crowned the overall winner of this year’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition.

Paul, aged 17, took home the top prize for his project entitled

‘Contributions to cyclic graph theory’. He was presented with a cheque for $5,000, the opportunity to represent Ireland at the 26th European Union Young Scientist competition, which will take place in September and a brand new trophy.

As this year’s winner, Paul will also win a once in a lifetime trip to Silicon Valley in California, home to some of the world’s biggest technology corporations, to meet BT’s Innovation team. He will enjoy a hosted tour of leading enterprises and meet business leaders from the world of science and technology.

Senator Averil Power (FF) was among the local public representatives to congratulate Paul on his magnificent achievement.

“I was extremely impressed by Paul when I met him at the RDS,

? said Ms Power, Fianna Fáil’s Seanad spokesperson on Education & Skills.

“He spent over 300 hours working on his project and it was great to see that hard work recognised by the judges.

“Paul has an incredibly advanced grasp of mathematics. I have no doubt that he has a great future ahead of him.

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Dublin Bay North TD Aodhán � Ríordáin (Lab) and Clontarf ward councillor Jane Horgan-Jones (Lab) also commended Paul following his triumph.

“I am delighted to see Paul’s work being recognised,

? said Deputy Ã? Ríordáin.

“Jane and I met him during the exhibition and we were very impressed by his knowledge and understanding of complex mathematical concepts.

“He is also an extremely articulate and personable young man.

“Competitions like the Young Scientist are an important part of our educational cycle as they recognise people who have an interest and desire to explore the world around them.

“It was great to meet so many confident and articulate students who made such an effort with their exceptional projects.

“We would like to thank the teachers and pupils from Dominican College Drumcondra, St Fintan’s Sutton and St Paul’s Raheny for facilitating our visit.

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Deputy � Ríordáin added:

“Special congratulations must be extended to Paul for such an incredible achievement of which we’re sure his family, school and local community are justly proud.

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Dublin Bay North TD Terence Flanagan (Ind), a member of the Reform Alliance group, said: “Congratulations to Paul Clarke. I visited Paul’s stand on Friday morning (January 10) and was thoroughly impressed with his project on Contributions to Cyclic Graph Theory.

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Speaking about Paul’s winning entry, Professor Tom Laffey, judge in the Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences category, said:

“Graph theory is an area of pure mathematics which studies properties of linkages and networks.

“It has applications in several areas including computing, molecular structure, neuroscience, search engines, engineering etc.

“In this project Paul makes a profound contribution to the study of graphs. He identifies key concepts and provides the methodology to apply them to some long-standing major problems in the subject with great success.

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Colm O’Neill, chief executive of BT Ireland, said:

“Over the three days we have had some of Ireland’s brightest, most creative and positive young people astound us with their ideas for a better future and we have been greatly impressed by the high standard of these entries.

“I would like to congratulate every single student who participated and of course to Paul on his enormous achievement.

?