Matt Hutnik from Sligo has been announced as the winner of the Imagine IT Sligo Photo Competition.
The winning photograph received 343 public votes in a two week voting period on the IT Sligo Facebook page. The black and white photo features a mature lady reading the IT Sligo Prospectus, with the tag line ‘You’re never too old to think about your education…’
Matt Hutnik has won an iPad2 for his imaginative photo.
Runners Up
Two runners up will also receive iPod Touches for their entries. Stephen Glacken’s photo received 255 votes and Aine Whyte’s received 163 votes.
Their photos took two very different approaches: Stephen’s photo involves a play on the eyes, with a young man resting against a drawing of a bicycle on the ground pretending to be riding it while reading the Prospectus. The tag line was ‘on yer bike to IT Sligo 😉 and Aine took a photo of the WB Yeats statue beside the Ulster Bank in Sligo holding the Prospectus, linking in very cleverly to the Yeats theme that is so associated with IT Sligo.
About The Competition
More than 60 entries were received in the competition and they were shortlisted by a selection panel which included IT Sligo’s Communication Manager, Sinéad McGovern, Aoife Porter, Digital Marketing Consultant at Bua Marketing, and James Connolly, professional photographer and owner of PicSell8.
Fifteen photos were shortlisted from Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon, Cavan, and Dublin and more than 1,300 votes were then cast in the two week voting period.
Communication Manager, Sinéad McGovern, said the competition was designed to get prospective students thinking about the Institute and the opportunities it offers them; “We asked entrants to get a photograph with our Prospectus and to think of a tag line that associated their photo with the Imagine IT Sligo concept. Third level education offers such great opportunities for students of all ages and we wanted to get our Prospectus into the hands of even more people – to get them thinking about our courses and about the prospect of studying here.”
Congratulating the winner, she said; “The winners were selected by public vote in the end and Matt did exceptionally well to receive 340 number of votes. The concept he represented in his photo is a very relevant one – more and more mature people are now returning to education and IT Sligo has a significant percentage of mature students. Lifelong learning has been earmarked as a significant priority for the Government in its National Strategy for Higher Education and our message to mature learners is – come and talk to us! There are plenty of options for you here, whether it’s one of our online courses or our full time CAO courses.”
IT Sligo offers more than 50 CAO across the disciplines of Science, Engineering, Business & Humanities. Full info on all courses here.
Image Captions:
- Top: ‘You’re never too old to think about your education…’ by Matt Hutnik
- Middle: “On yer bike to IT Sligo” by Stephen Glacken
- Bottom: “W.B. Yeats showing his interest in IT Sligo” by Áine Whyte