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News'Army' of mentors needed for start-ups
'Army' of mentors needed for start-ups
20.07.2010
Speaking at the launch of this year’s David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Awards, businessman Alfie Kane said every start-up in Ireland should be allocated a mentor to bring down failure rates.
“What’s been proven to reduce failure rates for start-ups? Mentoring - the gift of time. It’s not rocket science. Ireland has an army of successful people who are able and willing to pass on their skills and the Government needs to harness this expertise into a structured national support system,” said Kane, who is chairman of the judges.
“The mentor doesn’t have to be an entrepreneur – there is a wealth of managerial talent in both private and public companies. The banks and the public service departments, for example, could get mid-level management to each donate, say, a day every fortnight to mentor start-ups. This is not a new theory - we have talked about it so often – now let’s just do it.”
David Manley Awards in eighth year
The David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Awards are in their eighth year and honour the enterprising spirit within business, the arts and in the social community. Business to Arts, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, Business Innovation Centres, incubation centres and enterprise support agencies work with the David Manley award committee in implementing the scheme.
The prize fund is worth over €100,000 and the nine short-listed entrants receive mentoring. In addition, the overall winner gets €10,000 in cash and mentoring and consultancy services from a variety of top companies. Category winners will receive €1,000 in cash.
Last year's winner — RendezVu
“Winning the David Manley Award means everything to us. Our challenge is to become the market leader in immersive education for languages. As an emerging company with a global focus, it is invaluable for us to have access to the range of skills on offer, from financial and legal through to marketing and PR. These skills are helping to ensure our first product release in September is a guaranteed success," said last year’s winner of the award, Paul Groarke of RendezVu.
The closing date for the first round is 30 August 2010 and nine short-listed people will then be invited to make a more detailed submission, followed by an interview. The winner will be announced in January 2011.
Photo: Dr Chris Horn, vice-chair, DMA panel of judges, Garrett Hussey, CTO, RendezVu, Paul Groarke, CEO, RendezVu and Alfie Kane, chair, panel of judges.
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