Bizstartup.ie - NewsAbtran founder named as GEP alumni award winner

A 1998 GEP graduate, Ryan left a multinational in 1997 to create Abtran with Michael and Gerard Fitzgerald. It has since become one of Ireland’s largest business-process outsourcers with projected turnover in excess of €40m in 2010 and employing over 1,000 people.

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin TD presented the award to Ryan at the keynote Genesis Showcase and Awards Ceremony at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT).

And, as reported on Siliconrepublic.com in February 2010, Abtran also recently formed a research partnership with the Cork Constraint Computation Centre at University College Cork.

Twelve years of supporting start-ups

Over the last 12 years, the GEP has been enabling potential entrepreneurs to start up innovative, knowledge-intensive businesses in the south-west region of Ireland, with the objective of helping them to develop into highly successful companies capable of competing in global markets.

The Genesis Alumni Award is presented annually and pays tribute to a GEP alumnus who has made substantial achievements in their commercial field or has contributed in a significant way to the economic development of knowledge-based businesses in the region.

Applications for the 2010-11 GEP, which commences in May, are now being accepted. Forms can be completed online here.

About Abtran

Founded in 1997 with six employees, Abtran has grown to become Ireland's largest indigenous business process outsourcer with a projected turnover in excess of €40m in 2010. Abtran has made an ongoing €6m investment in a new Learning & Innovation Centre at the Irish company's Cork headquarters where 800 staff are now employed.

Photo: The Rubicon Centre at CIT, from which GEP is run