Trinity’s new ideas space Tangent, represents a sea change in University education in Ireland. Stephen Conmy asks Dr Diarmuid O’Brien what it means for students, Irish society and the startup ecosystem at large.
“We live in a world where two-thirds of all new jobs are now created by companies less than five years old,” says Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, chief innovation and enterprise officer at Trinity College Dublin.
O’Brien and his team recently opened ‘Tangent’ – an ‘ideas workspace’ in the University which brings together all the entrepreneurial programmes that Trinity is renowned for.
Tangent will allow students access to a “cutting-edge innovation and entrepreneurship education”.
On offer will be startup acceleration programmes, innovation and entrepreneurship community events and supports for the fledgeling to mature entrepreneurs.
“It is vital that we give our students and graduates the skills and knowledge to succeed in this ever-changing world,” says O’Brien.
“We don’t want to teach students how to get a job, we want to teach them how to create a job, not just for themselves but for others too.”
“The skills they want are skills to survive and thrive in a world of constant flux.”
Real survival skills
O’Brien says that today’s students are very different from the students of the recent past. They were born into the mobile, digital age. They see innovation as something to be involved in. Their ‘rock stars’ are entrepreneurs.
“You could say it’s the Steve Jobs effect or the Elon Musk effect,” says O’Brien. “But the students we see today are very focused on work as it applies to something. They want to build things, create things, disrupt things. Most of them are fully aware that the ‘job for life’ is gone and they need to be able to create things and pivot when something happens. The skills they want are skills to survive and thrive in
