Fingal’s Alan Hickey wins National Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur Award

Fingal’s Alan Hickey wins National Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur Award

Castleknock native Alan Hickey, the co-founder of the crowd-sourced on-demand delivery platform WeBringg, was crowned Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) in the Best Start-Up Business Category at the national IBYE finals at the Google HQ on the 22nd of April 2018. The award was presented by Minister of State for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, Mr. Pat Breen T.D. Hickey had previously won the County and Regional heats in this category which was open to companies who are established and trading for less than 18 months. At the national final, he beat the seven other regional winners to emerge with the coveted award, in addition to an investment fund of €20,000. This brings Alan’s total IBYE prize fund to €35,000.

WeBringg was set up in 2015 to address a need in the market for quicker deliveries of consumer goods purchased online.  The technology is aimed at revolutionising E-Commerce, utilising crowdsourcing technology to find drivers to carry deliveries to their destination, while it would otherwise be sitting in a warehouse waiting to be part of a group delivery. WeBringg currently has over 4,000 drivers in their database and have operations in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff with expansion in Australia and New Zealand planned for 2018.

Another Fingal entrepreneur, Kevin Kelleher from Ostaform, reached the final three in the Best Business Idea Category and will receive a €4,000 investment fund. Kevin has developed a novel medical device that manages and effectively reduces skin complications caused by Colostomy bags. He has conducted two patient trials to date which saw a 45% improvement in patients’ skin conditions.

Mayor of Fingal Cllr. Mary McCamley spoke of her delight at the success of the Fingal entrepreneurs: “I have been lucky enough to have been able to follow both Alan and Kevin since the County finals and had no doubt but they would achieve great success at a national level. I am delighted to see that their hard work and dedication has been rewarded and it is clear that with entrepreneurs of their calibre in the county, the future is bright for Fingal.”

Oisin Geoghegan, the Head of Enterprise with Local Enterprise Office Fingal, congratulated the local entrepreneurs, saying: “This award is very much deserved for Alan, and also his business partner Sean Murray. This process started last September and since then we have been blown away by the businesses and the talent that we have encountered in Fingal. Both of Fingal’s finalists today have worked incredibly hard to get here and I am delighted that they have been so well rewarded”.

The Chief Executive of Fingal County Council, Paul Reid, also extended his congratulations to Alan Hickey: "I would like to congratulate Alan on his tremendous success. We are very proud to see Fingal businesses competing, and winning, on the national stage. The win is evidence of the tremendous work being done to promote enterprise and entrepreneurship across the County. Given this, and Fingal’s young population, I am sure we will be seeing similar success stories into the future. I also know that our Local Enterprise Office in Fingal County Council will be there to help these businesses on their start-up journey.”

Aimed at 18 to 35-year-olds, the IBYE initiative is run by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) nationwide, and supported by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and Enterprise Ireland. The investment awards will be used by the young entrepreneurs to help fund business start-ups, create new jobs locally and help develop new products for international markets.

Competition details and results are available from www.ibye.ie and information around the supports available to young entrepreneurs through the Local Enterprise Offices is available from www.localenterprise.ie