Drogheda student Max Crinion-Morgan has been named as the winner of the 2025 Cruickshank High Achieving Merit Award and €5,000 at the Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards.

A second-year student on the BSc (Hons) in General Nursing at Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT), Max was presented with his award at a ceremony in TUD Blanchardstown, following a tough competition.

The Cruickshank High Achieving Merit Award and €5,000 was presented to Max for his innovation, RespÉire.

The overall winner of the 2025 competition was Saor Water, which offers bespoke canned water as a sustainable alternative to plastic bottles.

Ten cutting-edge innovations which address a range of global challenges were shortlisted for the final of the 44th annual Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards, and these included medtech devices, sustainable solutions and pioneering sports tech focused innovations.

Max’s entry RespÉire is a short-term respiratory rate monitoring device designed to assist nurses during patient observations. As respiration rate is often the earliest indicator of clinical deterioration, the device offers a more efficient and accurate alternative to current manual methods - aiming to save time, reduce costs, and improve patient outcomes

Speaking after receiving his award Max said: "So far it's been a very exciting journey since I started working on RespÉire just four months ago and discovered this amazing world of support for Irish Entrepreneurs.

"Entrepreneurship wasn't something that I was contemplating when I was focused on my Nursing studies, so you can imagine my surprise, when RespÉire was chosen from over 1000 students then narrowed down to 50 and then one of the final 10.

"Receiving the Cruickshank High Achieving Merit Award was an absolute honour and I am so grateful for this recognition. To any of my fellow Student Nurses and anyone else who thinks they have a great idea, don't be afraid to explore it, as you never know what you might achieve."

The Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards is focused on supporting students to turn their smart ideas into commercial businesses, and aims to encourage and stimulate entrepreneurship by helping students take what are often their first steps towards commercial success. The annual initiative, which invites applications from third-level student innovators, is co-sponsored by Cruickshank, Grant Thornton and the Local Enterprise Offices.

Garrett Duffy, Incubation Centre Manager at DkIT, said: “On behalf of DkIT I want to say a huge congratulations to Max on his impressive achievement. The calibre of entries in the Student Entrepreneur Awards is so high and it is fantastic to see his idea getting the recognition it deserves. Innovations like RespÉire and innovative students like Max have the ability to make a huge impact on society when they have the right support and resources behind them. I look forward to seeing how RespÉire develops in the future and hope that Max’s achievements will inspire many more students to take a chance on their ideas. “

Ryan Ormonde and Jonathan Hoffman from Saor Water, a bespoke canned water solution for brands who are seeking a sustainable alternative to plastic bottles were named as the overall winnersof the 2025 Awards.

Their company offers custom-branded aluminium cans and a low-minimum order service, which includes design, compliance, and logistics, and they are already working with high-profile clients such as Mercedes-Benz and Sculpted by Aimee.

As the overall winners of this year’s competition, Technological University Dublin students Ryan Ormonde and Jonathan Hoffman have won a €10,000 prize, as well as mentoring supports from Enterprise Ireland experts and advisors, focused on supporting them to develop their products and explore new market opportunities. 

 Other prizes presented at this year’s ceremony, which was hosted in TUD on Friday, included;

• The Grant Thornton High Achieving Merit Award and €5,000 was presented to David Cashman for his company, The WellSchools Network.
• The Local Enterprise Office High Achieving Merit Award and €5,000 was presented to Sean O’Sullivan for his product, Lion’s Reign.
• The Enterprise Ireland Academic Award, recognising the contribution of third-level project supervisor, was awarded to Dr Margaret Tynan from South East Technological University. 

The other six finalists from this year’s competition also received a prize of €1,500 each from the Enterprise Ireland Merit Awards Fund.

 In addition, this year’s winners will also benefit from comprehensive business advice and mentoring supports from Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Office, Intellectual Property consultancy and protection from Cruickshank and business plan development from Grant Thornton.