A KINSALE student has secured a top IT enterprise award at University College Cork with an AI-powered app designed to change the way people shop for groceries.

Jack Weitzman won second prize in the annual AxisBIC Entrepreneurship Award at UCC’s School of Computer Science and Information Technology for his final-year project, GrocerARy.

Jack developed an augmented reality grocery assistant built for Android. ‘Winning second place in the AxisBIC Entrepreneurship Award means a lot to me,’ said Jack.

‘GrocerARy started as a final-year project, but I always believed it had real commercial potential. Having that recognised by AxisBIC is a huge encouragement to possibly take it further.’ Designed to make healthy shopping decisions easier, GrocerARy highlights items on a user’s shopping list.

The app uses a phone’s camera to recognise products in real time and instantly overlays nutritional information on screen, removing the need for barcode scanning.

For products not immediately recognised, GrocerARy includes a barcode scanner that retrieves full nutritional data from an open database.

Jack built the system entirely from scratch over the course of his final year, and it included the development and training of a custom AI model using self-collected data.

To win the award, Jack’s project underwent an initial review process, before progressing to a panel interview stage, where Jack pitched the idea and responded to questions from AxisBIC judges, demonstrating both technical capability and commercial awareness.

Now in its sixth year, the AxisBIC Entrepreneurship Award recognises standout undergraduate projects with a focus on innovation, real-world impact and business potential.

This year’s top prize was awarded to Ishaan Arakkal Anwar from Carrigaline, a BSc Data Science and Analytics student, for his project Barrikade.

The platform explores a new security layer for autonomous AI agents, addressing emerging risks as such systems increasingly perform real-world tasks like sending emails, accessing data, and interacting with enterprise systems.

Third place went to a collaborative team, Lily McDonnel, Andrea Marshall, Saoirse O’Donovan, and Dylan O’Toole, for their project OnBotting.

Prof Dirk Pesch, School of Computer Science and Information Technology, said the winning entries reflected key areas shaping the future of technology.

‘Computer Science is at the core of a wide range of innovations that run our modern world. Advanced connectivity and AI are driving innovation but also leading to cybersecurity challenges.

The three projects that received an award focus on these topics, cybersecurity, augmented reality and AI assisted chatbots,’ he said.

Dan Murphy, senior consultant at AxisBIC, said the quality and ambition of this year’s projects once again highlighted the exceptional talent emerging from the next generation of innovators.

‘At AxisBIC, we are proud to support initiatives that encourage students to think beyond the technical aspects of their work and consider real-world application and commercial potential. The winning projects understood that customer led technological solutions have the best potential to succeed,’ Mr Murphy said.