The summer school in Dublin started after a ten-day holiday after 2nd semester exams at TU Dublin. Most of us returned to attend the summer school from warmer places to rather chilly Dublin. The school started with the lectures by Sophie Nicklaus from INRA, Dijon, a very well-known Scientist in the field of Infant Nutrition and Sensory Science. It was a pleasure learning the basics of measurement of sensory behaviours among infants and the methods to characterized and measure the responses. Her classes constituted of lectures and practical sensory tests with infant food.

Sophie Nicklaus giving lecture to Cohort 8 about measurement of Infant response to Infant food

Tushar and Klara preparing infant food samples for sensory tests for Cohort 8

One week of the summer school was a visit of Denisa from Danone International to introduce us with the future opportunities in Danone. The visit was rather interesting and was concluded with interview practices and tips on enhancing our profiles to better suit the internship roles in future.

Cohort 8 with representatives from Danone International

Cohort 8 students in group of three, practicing mock interviews

The third part of Summer School 2019 was with Gerald Perry Marin, a former FIPDes student who successfully started his business in Food Industry in Germany. He taught us about Start-up Scene and helped us come up with food business ideas in groups. In the end we presented our pitch deck to Venture Capitalists through Skype, who gave us honest feedback about our ideas. The classes with Gerald boosted our confidence to be an entrepreneur and work on our business ideas.

Gerald explaining the concept of business ideas analysis to Cohort 8

Summer School 2019 ended with a class visit at Teagasc for the ‘Food Innovation Gateway: Assuring Food Safety and Maximizing Shelf-Life’ event where Cohort 8 learnt about the latest research going on in Field of food science, technology and packaging in Ireland. The event was heavily focused on finding solutions for plastic waste and sustainable packaging.

Cohort 8 with Roisin Burke at Teagasc

After the event ended, Cohort 8 bid farewell to each other as now we will be divided into groups of three to continue with our endeavours in Italy, Paris and Lund. A year rather felt like a short period with our fun classmates. We all bid rather teary goodbyes to each other with the promise of meeting soon. Cheers to Cohort 8 for successfully finishing first year of FIPDes.

A casual happy picture of Cohort 8 with Gerald Perry Marin