A 22-year-old University College Cork (UCC) student and farmer from Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick, has been crowned champion of the 2022 Global Student Entrepreneur Awards.

Nick Cotter, CEO and co-founder of Cotter Agritech, which specialises in targeted, selective treatment systems for sheep, was named as the top entrepreneur among more than 1,000 applicants from 40 countries on six continents.

For his success, he will be awarded $40,000 in prize money to invest in his company.

Cotter Agritech, run by Nick and his brother Jack, makes the Cotter Crate sheep handling unit which takes the effort out of sheep work while allowing the farmer to quickly and easily carry out several stock management tasks and reducing the time spent handling sheep.

Nick Cotter.

The SmartWorm app is another brainchild of the Cotters and was recently launched in the UK. The app is marketed as “an advanced weighing and targeted selective treatment (TST) phone app that enables weight recording, treatment management and uniquely enables farmers to conduct targeted selective worming based on an algorithm”.

Background

Cotter has been an entrepreneur from a young age, setting up his first business, Cotter Bros Firewood, at 13.

In 2019, he set up a second business, Cotter Organic Lamb, which directly sells 100% grass-fed, organic lamb raised on his home farm to homeowners and local restaurants.

He is currently enrolled in University College Cork in his fourth year of law and business studies.

One judge described Cotter’s business as a “beautiful business idea that is growing from strength to strength”.

Upon finding out he had won, Cotter told the judges: “It’s much more than I ever thought was possible, becoming global champion.”

Earlier success

Earlier this year, Nick and his brother took part in the inaugural AgTechUCD Agccelerator Programme dedicated to early-stage agtech and food tech startups.

At the end of the 12-week programme Cotter Agritech was named winner of the AIB and Yield Lab AgTech Startup 2022 Award.