DKANE 23/04/2021 REPRO FREE Ignite Graduate Patrick O’Regan from Reachthetop a platform to streamline the NCAA recruitment process. They are part of the most recent group of graduates from the IGNITE programme which just held its Awards and Showcase for Spring 2021. IGNITE is an international award-winning start-up incubation programme at University College Cork, supporting recent graduate entrepreneurs to turn good ideas into great businesses. Pic Darragh Kane

SUCCESS: Patrick O'Regan has won a prestigious University College Cork entrepreneur competition.

By Sean Moriarty
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Better known for his roles as the secretary of Spa GAA Club or as a player for St Paul’s Basketball Club, Killarney man Patrick O’Regan has been declared the winner of the IGNITE business start-up-competition organised by University College Cork.

The Coolcorcoran man’s business start-up project, entitled 'Reach The Top' will help ease the difficult process faced by National Collegiate Athletic Association in America that wish to recruit potential international basketball stars.

While his online and cloud project is suitable for all sports and includes a secondary element where clubs can use software to analyse matches and player performances to get it off the ground, he will concentrate on US basketball.

“We are going to tog off here in Ireland and play ball in America,” he told the Killarney Advertiser.
Collegiate basketball is big business in America with many colleges having multi-million dollar budgets.
Currently, US-based scouts would fly around the world looking for new talent. Aside from the expense of all of this there is an incredible amount of paperwork and administration involved. All of this is time consuming and expensive.

Mr O’Regan’s platform aims to streamline this process and make the application easier for both the player and the university.

He also hopes to put more potential players in front of colleges, which will reduce the current expense and allow colleges to vet more potential athletes.

“We are doing all the pre-screening work for the colleges and on behalf of the athlete,” he added. “It will reduce the admin time significantly and reduce the costs for colleges who fly around the world looking for potential players. It will also help players from disadvantaged backgrounds get further up the ranks.”
IGNITE nurtures start-ups from an idea to commercial reality and this is the 13th group of graduates to complete the programme. Seven entrepreneurs including Patrick have become the first founders to complete the IGNITE programme entirely online this year.