Watch our ambitious alumni...

Ambition Programme 2023 Closing Date Monday, 31st July 2023 at midnight.

Open Night

Register to attend the Ambition Open Night on Thursday, 15th June 2023 at 18.30hrs (Online)

Register Your Interest

Ambition, what it is...

Ambition is an exciting accelerator programme of Local Enterprise Office' s in the North West - Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim. The programme focuses on female entrepreneurs and promotes the skills and resilience needed to develop globally scalable ventures, attract investment and create jobs.

The Local Enterprise Office will assist founders to bring ideas from concept to pitch, following in the footsteps of local role models such as Gillian Doyle (Cerebreon), Larissa Feeney (Accountancy Online) and Sharon McDaid (Silver Birch Gallery). Up to twelve business ideas are selected to receive mentoring and support through a series of workshops.

Who is eligible?

The Ambition programme is open to:

• Any Female Founder or Co-Founder
• Residents of County Donegal, Leitrim or Sligo or anyone part of the Donegal, Leitrim or Sligo Diaspora within Ireland or worldwide
• With a concept for a new product or services across any sector with a particular focus on technology and digital solutions
• Global scalability potential
• A team (preferably more than one person)
• With a commitment to grow a business from Donegal, Leitrim or Sligo, no matter where in the world you live at the moment

General Guidelines

• Applicants should preferably be part of a team (more than one person). There are no limits on each team's number of members; however, teams may only select up to three participants to complete the workshops.
• The competition is open to residents of County Donegal, Leitrim or Sligo or anyone part of the Donegal, Leirtrim or Sligo Diaspora within Ireland or worldwide.

Selection

We are looking for innovative new business ideas amongst the north west's female entrepreneurs. Convince us that your business idea is the next big thing, and you will receive support to develop your business idea from concept to pitch.

Up to twelve businesses will be selected to participate in twelve half-day workshops. These will be chosen based on criteria including: the scale of ambition, the size of the problem to be solved, early market understanding, a clear competitive advantage, feasible business model and strength and diversity of the team.

Teams must be available to participate on all programme days as outlined. At the end of the programme showcase, a Judging Panel comprising leading entrepreneurs, executives and investors, will evaluate progress.

2023 Timeline

Teams must be available to participate in all sessions on the dates outlined above.

What they said about Ambition....

• “Clear schedule communication, excellent planning, very well organised and quality speakers’.
• “I really enjoyed learning from and with other women. It was a constructive and safe learning environment”.
• “The content was well structured and each module built on the previous one. I now have good tools that I can continue to use in the future”.
• “The support and experience from mentors was invaluable, the belief in each of our businesses was really nice and encouraging”.
• “The ‘Ambition Buddy’ was a wonderful support and the suggestion of weekly catch up calls with participants”.
• “The genuine challenge and the generosity of time, energy, effort and opinion”.
• “Loved it!”