Limerick's Collison brothers awarded prestigious St Patrick’s Day Science Medal

LIMERICK brothers John and Patrick Collison have been awarded the prestigious Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) St Patrick’s Day Science Medal.

The award was presented to the Stripe founders by Taoiseach Micheál Martin at a special event in Washington D.C. 

The award was also presented to Prof Donald McDonnell, Associate Director for Translational Research for the Duke Cancer Institute for his work in the development of new treatments for breast and prostate cancers.

Stripe is a financial services and software service company headquartered in San Francisco and Dublin.

The company primarily offers payment processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications.

Congratulations ⁦@patrickc⁩ and ⁦@collision⁩ for winning this year’s ⁦@scienceirel⁩ St. Patrick’s Day Science Medal for Industry.

Stripe a real Irish tech and innovation success story. pic.twitter.com/yfehV9sEqM

— Micheál Martin (@MichealMartinTD) March 16, 2022

Stripe is one of the most valuable privately-owned companies globally. The company currently employs over 500 people at its Dublin HQ and plans to hire over 1,000 more people in Ireland – a key engineering hub for the company – in the coming years. 

Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD, said: "On behalf of the Government of Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland, I am delighted to present the SFI St. Patrick’s Day Science Medal to Professor Donald McDonnell and to John and Patrick Collison, for their outstanding contributions to science and technology.

"We are deeply proud of their inspirational achievements and the societal and economic impacts they have made on the global stage.

"This prestigious prize recognises the critical importance of US-Ireland relations, particularly in the areas of research, development and innovation.

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"Through these enduring Transatlantic links, we are creating new opportunities and furthering knowledge with the potential to address societal needs and economic challenges, as well as nurturing future talent in the areas of science, technology, engineering and maths."

Stripe President, John Collison, said: "Patrick and I are honoured to accept this award. With all the talent and ambition in Ireland, we’re convinced that many more young people will pursue a career in technology, and we can't wait to see what problems they will solve. We will continue to do our bit, including through our partnership with the University of Limerick.

"The overwhelmingly positive response to the Immersive Software Engineering course—and other projects like Fast Grants and the Arc Institute—have proved that we have a long runway ahead of us in terms of the investments we will continue to make in science, in technology and in Ireland's potential."