Best12young entrepreneurs incountyfinal
WEXFORD’S brightest and boldest young entrepreneurs will go head-to-head tonight (Tuesday) in the County Final of the Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition.
Following a series of bootcamps, 12 young entrepreneurs have made it through to this year’s IBYE County Final and are ready to face the judges in County Hall this evening. Six of these will be chosen across three categories – Best Business Idea, Best Start-Up Business and Best Established Business – to win a share of a €50,000 investment fund.
The finalists in the Best Business Idea category are Patrick Kinsella, Mark Rowe, Sandra Martin, Rob Kramer and Andy O’Connor. Patrick will try to impress the judges with his innovative current account for smartphones idea, while Mark hopes to get through to the next round with a plan concerning healthcare date and analytics for sleep disorder breathing. Meanwhile, Sandra Martin will pitch her app for national tourist boards and Andy will lay out his idea for a popular opinion website. Rob Kramer will hope to win a share of the fund with his parking app idea.
IN the Best Established Business Category, Jack Harte hopes to win his way into the next round when he presents his cast-iron outdoor lighting business to the judges.
Ronan McGrath, Richard Murphy, Aleksandra Riquet, Gillian Duggan-White, Robert Tierney and Katie Hillis have all made it through to the county final under the Best Start-Up Business Category. Ronan will outline his online marketing referral organisation to the judges, while Richard aims to get top marks for his online platform covering physical and mental wellbeing. Aleksandra’s fruit arrangement business will be in the spotlight during her interview, followed by Gillian, whose business concerns designing greeting cards, mugs and prints. Robert hopes to move forward with his social media marketing agency idea while Katie plans to brew up success when she discusses her wholesale coffee bean company with the judges.
This year’s competition attracted a record 1,800 entries around the country.
‘ The exceptionally high standard of entries will make the competition tough and challenging, but it will also help bring out the full potential of entrants and inspire them to succeed whether they win at the County Final stage or not,’ said LEO Head of Enterprise Tom Banville.
The county winners will proceed to eight regional finals in January and February 2017 to compete for the national title of Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur. WEXFORD charities and community groups have received 11,198 meals through Aldi’s partnership with FoodCloud, according to Aldi Ireland.
St Vincent de Paul Gorey, South West Wexford Family Resource Centre and Ferns Diocesan Youth Service are some of the groups that have benefitted from the donations. It forms part of the national partnership between Aldi and FoodCloud whereby surplus food from Aldi stores nationwide is redistributed to charity groups.
Finbar McCarthy, Aldi’s Group Buying Director said:
‘We are delighted to be supporting charities across County Wexford through FoodCloud. Even across an efficient retail operation such as Aldi, there will unavoidably be some unsold, surplus food each day. By partnering with FoodCloud such surplus food goes to a good cause. Combatting food poverty and waste in the areas our stores serve is a central pillar of our community programme and we would encourage any charity or community group in County Wexford that can benefit from FoodCloud’s services to register at www.foodcloud.com.’
A total of 79 Aldi stores across Ireland are now participating in the partnership programme with FoodCloud, donating over 234 tonnes of surplus food so far.