DCU Final-Year Students Showcase Human-Centred Innovation in “Road Safety Reimagined” Competition

Dublin City University recently celebrated the creativity, insight and design-thinking capabilities of its final-year Business students as they unveiled their campaign concepts for Road Safety Reimagined—a collaborative initiative sponsored by ESB and supported by the Department of Transport and the Gardaí. The showcase marked the culmination of a semester-long, research-driven project requiring students to investigate real behaviours, conduct interviews within assigned audience segments, and develop communication strategies grounded in empathy and human insight.

Across 40 teams, students worked with seven distinct road-user personas—ranging from new drivers and daily commuters to older road users and international visitors—transforming initial skeletal profiles into vivid, evidence-based personas of real people. This user understanding underpinned all campaign proposals, a core requirement of the design-thinking approach assessed throughout the module.

Speaking about the initiative,

Síle Ginnane, ESB Road Safety Manager, said: “ESB is delighted to sponsor the ‘Road Safety Reimagined’ initiative and warmly welcome the participation of DCU students this year. Their team collaboration, creative output and presentation delivery was excellent. In particular, it was heartening to see the level of background research and insights underpinning their creative campaigns. Seeing how engaged the participating students were in addressing the critical and complex health and safety issue of road traffic collisions was very uplifting. Congratulations to all the participants, and looking forward to seeing even more great work from the finalists!”

Sgt. Tony Miniter, An Garda Síochana highlighted,”The standard of entries from the DCU students was very high and it was very clear that they put a lot of time, effort and thought into this project. I’m really excited about what we can do with the material that they have produced and looking forward to our showcase event in April 2026.”

Prof. Regina Connolly said, ’This Challenge Based Learning project proves that when you give talented students a real societal challenge and the tools of AI, they don’t just produce ideas—they create solutions that can save lives.”

Niamh O’Conor, Department of Transport, added:
“The students in DCU presented innovative and creative ideas to address the important issue of road safety. It was great to see such enthusiasm shining through their work!”

Professor Regina Connolly and Dr Peter Robbins emphasised the importance of real-world engagement, field research, and insight generation—elements distinguishing this module as one firmly rooted in authentic learning.

Reflecting on the experience from a student perspective, Sam Hannigan, speaking on behalf of Group 8, said, “Our group really enjoyed this module from start to finish. The mix of lectures, guest speakers and hands-on challenges gave us experiences and insights that genuinely changed how we learn. As final-year students, the skills we developed feel incredibly valuable as we prepare to enter the world of work. Even in graduate interviews, so many conversations link back to what we covered here. Getting to explore the latest developments in AI from both technical and business perspectives was especially exciting and feels like a real advantage of being a DCU student.”

Dr Peter Robbins, module coordinator, noted that the essence of the project lies in its human-centred methodology: students must listen, observe, and understand people before designing solutions for them. “AI can support creativity,” he said, “but empathy remains fundamentally human—and that’s what today’s showcase demonstrated.”

Winners from this event will progress to a national final in April which includes 6 other universities and will take place in Limerick. The event concluded with judges offering words of encouragement to the teams and recognising the professionalism and imagination evident across all presentations.