Loreto College Mullingar claim two awards at Kinia’s Creative Technology Week 2026
A teacher at Loreto College Mullingar, Sinéad Uí Dhroma has been honoured with the Educator of the Year at Kinia’s Creative Tech Fest during Creative Technology Week 2026.
As well as Sinéad’s award the school also received the AI & Machine Award. They were also nominated for the Robotics Award.
The events took place as part of Kinia's annual showcase of young digital innovators, celebrating groundbreaking projects in Creative Technology, Smart Energy, Green Tech, Mobile Filmmaking, Podcasting and Robotics.
Speaking about her award Sinéad said, “We are delighted for all our hard work to be acknowledged.
“The girls have worked so hard over the last number of years to promote STEM in the school and we are so delighted to be here today.
“Thank you so much to Kinia for all their help and support because without them we wouldn’t have been able to do it.
The awards were presented in front of a record-breaking attendance of over 1,000 young innovators from across the country in the Explorium, Sandyford.
Kinia is an education focused non-profit and social enterprise. It is dedicated to reducing educational inequality by building digital skills and access to technology career pathways for young people across Ireland.
The organisation’s impact continues to grow with over 428,000 children and young people have benefited from Kinia’s work to date with 25,606 educators engaged and 3,079 schools and youth centres supported nationwide.
The awards were presented during Creative Technology Week celebrations, which saw a record-breaking attendance of over 1,000 young innovators from across Ireland display their projects as part of 2 days of events in the Explorium, Sandyford.
Young people attended, engaged in hands-on workshops such as Machine Learning and AI, and competitions, such as the new Kinia Hydrogen Grand Prix (H2GP), where young minds competed in racing hydrogen-powered vehicles.
A new education programme, Hydrogen Grand Prix was also added into the 2026 schedule; a global racing series and empowers the next generation of engineers, problem-solvers and clean energy champions.
The past year saw continued growth with over 2,000 educators engaged and through the wide range of programmes available 21,821 young people gained access to transformative learning opportunities.
Over 63% of these figures relate to students from socio-economically disadvantaged communities and 90.3% of STEM engagement involved girls and young women. Total reach extended to 414 schools and youth services, reinforcing the organisational commitment to equitable access to quality education in every corner of Ireland.
CEO of Kinia, Marriane Checkley spoke during the programme of events saying, “Huge congratulations to Sinéad and the Loreto College students for their awards.
“We in Kinia are in awe of Sinéad's motivation, her advocacy for her students and her promotion of Technology.
“She is a worthy winner of the Educator of the Year Award. She is a passionate advocate of ‘Girls in STEM’ in Loreto College and she set up a School Digital Ambassador Team for students, a Robotics Module for the TY programme, the all-inclusive Tech Thursday Lunchtime club and much more and is an absolute credit to her school and students.
“Creative Technology Week continues to be a highlight of the year, both for us at Kinia and also the community of educators and young people attending.
“We are thrilled to have welcomed over 1,000 attendees this week across the three main events and the addition of the H2GP National final was a resounding success and we look forward to seeing this grow in the future.
“We remain dedicated to reducing educational inequality by building digital skills and access to technology career pathways for young people across Ireland.
“We are continuing to work towards our ambitious plan of upskilling 50,000 educators and reaching 800,000 young people by 2030 and these events are a huge part of helping us deliver our message.”