The search for Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) is on. The closing date for applications is October 14, 2016.
Four former IBYE winners recently met with the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor T.D. and talked about the role IBYE has played in their business success stories.
The four previous IBYE award winners run businesses from the worlds of technology, food, waste management and retail.
James Keogh (Wicklow) from Rathwood Home & Garden World Ltd.; Isolde Johnson (Dublin City) from The Cool Bean Company; Niall Mimnagh (Longford) from Mimergy; and Rhona Togher (Sligo) from Restored Hearing Ltd. have all won IBYE awards over the last two years
As winners, they received investment funding, business boot camp places, and one-to-one mentoring sessions.
“I want to promote entrepreneurship as a career choice, and to encourage young people to set up new businesses which will ultimately create and sustain more jobs right across the country,” says Minister O’Connor. “It is so refreshing to hear the success stories from these inspiring and ambitious young entrepreneurs.”
What is the IBYE, what’s involved?
Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur is a programme open to people between the ages of 18 (at the date of application) and 35 (at 31st December 2016) with a great business idea. Entrants can be:
Individuals
Venture teams
Partnerships
Existing businesses with a new idea
People overseas (including Irish emigrants) who will headquarter in Ireland
Each Local Enterprise Office (LEO) runs a competition in each county (Friday, October 14 is the closing date) aimed at finding winners in each of the three categories as well as an overall county winner.
Each LEO will have a total fund of up to €50,000 to invest in six businesses (three category winners and three runners-up).
The three categories are:
1: Best business idea (pre-trading) – up to €10,000 investment fund through every LEO (€7,000 for category winner and €3,000 for runner-up,
