May 2017 NUI Galway’s Brendan Smith Wins Galway City Council Volunteer of the Year

Brendan Smith, Education and Community Outreach Officer of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, NUI Galway was recently announced as the Galway City Council Volunteer of the Year, at their fourteenth Annual Mayor’s Awards. The Mayor of Galway City, Cllr. Noel Larkin presented the top award to Brendan Smith in recognition of his many years of dedicated service to volunteering.

In his professional capacity Brendan has worked extensively with a wide range of communities and educational groups to engage them in exploiting the potential of digital technologies for learning, cultural, heritage, social and economic purposes. Brendan also provides internet safety and cyberbullying awareness through workshops to parents, teachers and young people.

Brendan is a long-time member on the Board of the Galway Science and Technology Festival. This is the largest annual science festival in Ireland. He is co-founder of the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland based at NUI Galway,  the only such technology heritage facility of its kind in the country. He is also co-founder and mentor with Coderdojo Galway.  This is the fastest growing grassroots volunteer movement in Ireland which provides weekly digital makers classes to hundreds of children and their parents at NUI Galway.

Outside of his professional commitments, Brendan is well known for his community involvement which includes: the Terryland Forest Park which he wants developed as an outdoor classroom; the Ballinfoile Castlegar Neighbourhood and Sports Centre; the Ballinfoile Mór Community Organic Garden; Cumann na bhFear aka Men’s Shed; Heritage Preservation; Greenway cycling advocacy; and he also provides educational, health and social programmes to asylum seekers and other socially excluded groups.

The Mayors Awards are a yearly initiative by Galway City Council to acknowledge voluntary work carried out by people within Galway City. The awards acknowledge outstanding people and organisations that, through their commitment to participating in unpaid community and voluntary activities, have made a significant impact on the quality of their communities in Galway City.

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