On November 19th, 2025, National College of Ireland in (NCI) collaboration with Citi proudly announced the official kick-off of the Citi upStart programme for the 2025/26 academic year. The initiative, designed to foster innovation and entrepreneurship among postgraduate students, saw Citi organisers, mentors, NCI students, academics, and new partners gather for the launch event.
Activate mentorship
This year’s programme features 165 NCI postgraduate students who took part in a series of rigorous in-house idea-development workshops facilitated by NCI academic staff. This intensive process saw 60 students progress to team formation, advancing the most promising proposals which were then presented via elevator pitches at the event.
Addressing participants and mentors, Dr Prag Sharma, Director, Future of Finance Think tank, former Global Head of AI CoE at Citi expressed his admiration for the nascent ideas, and provided crucial advice on AI’s role: “AI is a tool for you to use, alongside the other tools you have acquired through college and your working life. AI augments our skills; so, become experts in using it to accelerate your capabilities.”
Following the pitches, a “speed dating” session allowed mentors from various Citi departments to connect with student teams, exploring project proposals and identifying alignment with their skills and insights.
Dr Anu Sahni, Programme Director for the MSc in AI for Business, Data Analytics, and Knowledge Transfer Champion at National College of Ireland underscored the transformative power of mentorship: “Having the guidance and support of an experienced mentor can provide a mentee with a broad range of personal and professional benefits, including gaining practical advice and encouragement, as well being exposed to new ideas, and new ways of thinking, and now having another big organisation, Mphasis onboard to support this initiative, we will definitely see a remarkable amount of value added to an already innovative collaboration.”
New supports
This year’s cohort has already benefited from additional supports, including valuable insights into innovative solution development from Georgina Lupu Florian and Adrian Florian of Wolfpack Digital.
Pritesh Tiwari, CEO of Data Science Wizards (itself a spin-out company from NCI MSc in Data Science), provided guidance on idea building and validation, while Swapnil Parashar, Director of Software Engineering at Oracle Cloud, shared industry perspectives on innovation.
New partnership
A?significant development for this year’s programme is the new strategic partnership withMphasis, a global AI-led, platform-driven technology solutions provider.
Mphasis will support participating student teams through project guidance and will sponsor awards and prizes for the winners at the upcoming Dragons’ Den event.
Rohit Jayachandran, Head of Banking & Financial Services at Mphasis, said: “Our long-standing partnership with Citi has opened the door to impactful collaborations, such as Dragons’ Den. At Mphasis, we see immense potential in the next generation of technologists, and working with Citi upStart allows us to nurture that potential and fuel innovation for the future. Additionally, Mphasis’ philosophy, “AI Without Intelligence Is Artificial™”, aligns perfectly with the programme’s focus on intelligent application of technology.”
The ten participating teams, comprised of master’s students in Cloud Computing, Data Analytics, AI, AI for Business, Fintech, or Cybersecurity, are developing a diverse range of impactful ideas. These include “Finpals,” an AI-driven solution for automating credit risk analysis; “Lendloop,” a peer-to-peer lending platform; “Medinova AI” and “Medtrix,” both focused on enhancing healthcare access and patient support; “Phantom,” an all-in-one Irish tourism app; and “Venture Forge,” which aims to innovate within the Carbon Credits Market using blockchain technology.
You can read more about the teams and their projects here on the NCI website.
Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of the School of Computing at National College of Ireland said: “Regardless of whether you become the ultimate winner, I cannot emphasise enough the value of taking part in the Citi upStart programme. It is a chance to thrive personally, academically, and to build potentially lifelong career connections. It is one of those fantastic opportunities that could be the turning point in a student’s academic and professional career.”
Founded in 2011, Citi upStart has a rich history of fostering innovation. Re-launched as a joint initiative with NCI in November 2024, the programme continues to be a vital platform for future technologists, driven by the leadership of Dr. Prag Sharma at Citi and Dr. Anu Sahni at NCI, and with top-down support from Davinia Conlan, Citi Country Officer, Ireland, and Professor Gina Quin, President of NCI.
See more stories here.
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