Search for Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur gets underway in Cork City.
€2 million investment fund to support young entrepreneurs, aged between 18 and 35
The latest search to find Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) is getting underway in Cork City this week, through the Local Enterprise Office, Cork City.
With a €2 million investment fund available, including a €50,000 investment fund for Cork City winners, the enterprise initiative from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Enterprise Ireland attracted 1,400 applications across the country last year and supported over 450 young entrepreneurs through training, mentoring and direct financial assistance.
Announcing the start of this year’s programme, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Ms. Mary Mitchell O’ Connor T.D. said:
“The quest to find Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur is one of the most exciting initiatives to create new businesses and new jobs in recent years. IBYE generates that "can-do" spirit in which young people excel. I want to foster that spirit and to demonstrate that there is help out there for any young person that wants to take a risk and start their own business. The first-stop-shop to get advice and support on starting a business is your Local Enterprise Office. I want to congratulate the Local Enterprise Offices on rolling out IBYE and I look forward to meeting Ireland's young entrepreneurs up and down the country. I would encourage all young entrepreneurs, between the ages of 18 and 35 to talk to their Local Enterprise Office about the IBYE programme and discuss their business ideas.”
The initiative is co-ordinated by all 31 Local Enterprise Offices and begins with a nationwide competition across three categories at county level: Best Idea, Best Start-Up Business and Best Established Business. Around 450 applicants, across every Local Authority area, will be invited to regional ‘Entrepreneur Bootcamps’ in November, to help them develop their business and new venture ideas.
Speaking about Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE), Minister for Employment and Small Business, Pat Breen T.D., said: "Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) initiative offers a very significant stepping stone into the world of running your own business for young people aged 18 to 35. It's not just the scale of the investment fund on offer that makes IBYE so important, IBYE entrants can go on to receive intensive enterprise boot camp training from their LEO under the programme, to help them establish and develop their entrepreneurship careers. The level and depth of the business mentoring, training and advice available during the LEO bootcamps has proven to be extremely effective in helping young ambitious business people to cope with all aspects of running a business, especially the preparation of focused business plans. Such plans are an essential tool for making a success of any business. IBYE has proven to be a great success in all the regions and I would encourage young people with a business idea or currently running a business to apply for Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur”.
With an investment fund of €50,000, the Local Enterprise Office, Cork City will award six investment prizes to three category winners and three runners-up, before the Regional Finals early next year.
The local winners in the Best Start-Up and Best Established Business categories will receive €15,000 each and the two runners-up will each receive €5,000. The Best Business Idea winner locally will receive an investment prize of €7,000 and the runner-up will receive €3,000.
Ms. Adrienne Rodgers, Head of Enterprise with the Local Enterprise Office, Cork City explains: “The €50,000 investment fund for Cork City winners is a very important part of the competition and will help more young entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and create more jobs here locally. Other business supports, such as management training, networking and one-to-one mentoring are also at the heart of the IBYE competition. 450 young entrepreneurs benefitted from these business supports last year, so the rewards are there for participants, as well as for the winners. Taking part in IBYE will help Ireland’s young entrepreneurs to move their businesses to the next level, whatever stage their business is at.”
The competition is now in its third year and last year’s local winners were: Breffney O’Dowling Keane from Fruit Cubed in the Best Business Idea category; Gail Condon from Writing for Tiny in the Best Start-Up Business category and Jack Crotty from The Rocketman in the Best Established Business category. Cork-based James Foody of Ayda went on to win the overall prize and was crowned Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur 2015.
To enter, young entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35 in Cork City are being asked to visit the competition website at www.ibye.ie, to submit their entry online. The closing date to enter is Friday, October 14th and there is no entry fee.
ENDS
For all media queries, please contact your Local Enterprise Office.
Notes to Editor
Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur 2016 (#IBYE) Website: www.ibye.ie (closing date to enter: Friday, October 14th 2016) Social Media: #IBYE Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur is a competition that is open to everyone, between the ages of 18 (at date of application) and 35 (as 31st December 2016), with an innovative business idea, including: • 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) is running a competition (October 14th closing date) aimed at finding winners in each of the three categories as well as an overall winner in each county. Each LEO will have a total fund of €50,000 to invest in six businesses (three category winners and three runners-up) according to criteria including businesses’ investment needs.
The competition is broken down into three categories with the following prize fund: • Best Business Idea (pre-trading) - €10,000 investment prize fund through every LEO (€7,000 for category winner and €3,000 for runner-up, through every LEO) • Best Start-Up Business (up to 36 months), with €20,000 investment prize fund through every LEO (€15,000 for category winner and €5,000 for runner-up, through every LEO) • Best Established Business (over 36 months) with €20,000 investment prize fund through every LEO (€15,000 for category winner and €5,000 for runner-up, through every LEO)
The county winners will then proceed to eight regional finals from which 24 contenders (three from each region – one in each category) will be selected to compete for the national title of Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur. A further €100,000 investment fund will be available to invest in the winners of the three categories at the national final, one of which will also be named “Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur”.
