Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint-hearted and the blood, sweat and tears that go into establishing and growing a business are not always recognised or rewarded. That’s why the national network of Local Enterprise Offices (LEO) established the National Enterprise Awards a quarter of a century ago.
This year’s ceremony will take place this month at The Mansion House in Dublin, where 31 finalists from across Ireland will compete for a €50,000 prize investment fund given to the overall winner. Awards categories recognise start-ups, sustainability, and innovation, as well as the One to Watch award, and eight regional runner-ups will also be chosen.
The Awards function as a showcase for the hard work taking place in communities across Ireland. Lightbulb ideas become fully realised businesses, creating employment and contributing to the local economy. Past winners at the National Enterprise Awards have - unsurprisingly - gone onto even bigger and better things since their recognition by LEO. Here we speak to two of them:
Bevcraft - Overall winner 2021
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Darren Fenton and Ciarán Gorman founded Bevcraft in 2016, just as craft beer shed its trendy tag and grew increasingly popular, with local microbreweries springing up across Ireland.
As craft breweries began to multiply, they were also looking for a more sustainable way of delivering their beers and lagers.
“Historically they would have been bottled but there was a big environmental push to move into can format because it is infinitely recyclable and suitable for export and we were just there at the right time,” says co-founder Ciarán Gorman.
Seven years later, the Mullingar-headquartered craft can company now works with over 500 brands across Europe, exporting to 15 countries. “We do everything when it comes to canning a craft-produced beverage,” explains Gorman. “We provide mobile contract canning where we bring a canning line to a craft beverage producer, we can decorate the can using digital printing, and source the material for them.”
Their services were thus eagerly snapped up by craft beer - and other craft beverage - producers in Ireland, but it wasn’t long before Bevcraft expanded to the UK and the Netherlands. They now have 20 canning lines and employ 45 staff, having expanded significantly even since they won the overall National Enterprise Award in 2021.
This success would not have been possible without the Westmeath Local Enterprise Office, Gorman asserts. “We had a good idea, but it was a capital intensive business, with major outlays in terms of buying equipment.” Having ploughed their own money into the fledgling business, a LEO start-up grant made the difference, he believes.
“To be honest, if we hadn’t gotten that, it would have been too high a threshold to raise it ourselves. Also when the bank saw that the LEO had backed us, they were also prepared to back us.”
Bevcraft also availed of many of LEO’s other unique supports, such as the Technical Assistance Micro Exporters grant. “They supported us from day one, but as we expanded and added more staff, they were still there to provide support and guidance,” Gorman says.
Gorman points out that Bevcraft is a regional business working with many other regional businesses. “The ethos of the Local Enterprise Office network is to create jobs in businesses across the country, not just the urban centres,” he says. “We have clients in every single county on the island, north and south, and in turn they are all supporting and driving employment in their communities.”
The recognition of winning the award is still benefiting the business, Gorman says.
“Over half of our business is in the UK and maybe three-quarters of it is abroad overall, when you deal internationally and you have that little sticker to say that you’ve won a national award in your home country, it resonates with banks and it resonates with suppliers, technology suppliers so it’s been very useful. Along with our track record, this significant award encourages people to deal with us.”
Cubbie – Innovation Award 2022
With two children who are autistic, and a background in tech, executing the idea for Cubbie was easy for engineer Dave McIntyre.
Combining hardware and software technologies, Cubbie is a cutting-edge installation that helps autistic students and those with sensory or additional needs. It offers a safe, comfortable and adaptable environment, pre-empting sensory overload and allowing the child or adult time to regulate. The installations can now be found in hundreds of schools across Ireland, as well as hospitals and even Dublin Airport.
When his daughter was diagnosed, McIntyre realised that many solutions offered by schools for neurodivergent and autistic students were, even if well-meaning, inappropriate or inadequate, or both. “For example, even if they had a sensory room, it would not help someone who was over-stimulated,” he points out. McIntyre realised that an occupational therapist was needed in order to define what a sensory room should look like for each type of user.
“We have linked the occupational therapist to a cloud-based piece of software and they create an experience for each person individually, whether they are under-stimulated or over-stimulated. So instead of students spending an indeterminate amount of time outside the classroom, they now spend 10 minutes outside the classroom and can resume their learning.”
As a tech innovation, it is unsurprising to hear they collect data to prove this. “In schools in Ireland since the beginning of January to the end of April, we have delivered 40,000 sensory breaks.” They have also shown that the Cubbie experiences steered by the occupational therapist are three times more effective than a standard sensory room - McIntyre says teachers are now using Cubbie for their own stress and neurotypical children are using it for anxiety. “It has become a product for everybody.”
McIntyre praises the support Cubbie received from the Mayo Local Enterprise Office, even in terms of soft skills. “I would be very tech-oriented and when explaining Cubbie I would do it from a tech/engineering point of view and not really try to sell the concept, which is really quite simple - LEO really helped me with that.”
McIntyre admits he was emotional when Cubbie were announced as the winner of the Innovation award last year. “It was the first recognition of the value of what we had achieved and it came at a time when we were working very hard. We are trying to change what can be a negative narrative to a positive narrative.”
To learn more about how Local Enterprise Offices support innovative business ideas, and how the National Enterprise Awards celebrate the achievements of Ireland’s micro-enterprise sector visit localenterprise.ie.