With funding of €280,000 under the Labour Market Activation Fund the Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT) and Innovo Training & Development have together launched a new programme designed to stimulate job creation, called the Enterprise Evolution Programme (EEP).
This new programme from ITT and Innovo takes a different approach in that it aims to create interdisciplinary opportunities by breaking down barriers between different sectors.
In other words, unemployed graduates from all fields, including engineering, science, technology and business, can get together and create start-ups that benefit from the multidisciplinary array of highly skilled people.
EEP will take on 80 people from these different backgrounds and bring them through an intense period of up skilling and retraining in order to ready them for creating their own export-led businesses.
“Many individuals who are currently unemployed are highly educated and skilled industry professionals across a range of disciplines,” said Declan Byrne, director of Innovo Training & Development.
“The EEP will provide a unique outlet to harness the ideas, creativity and expertise of these individuals to the benefit of our economy through the creation of innovative and export-led enterprises while at the same time upskilling and retraining participants in a range of smart economy areas,” he added.
The programme starts this September and will run in two phases. It is a holistic programme that offers both personal and professional development where participants are free to explore and develop ideas in an innovation-led environment.
Critically, graduates of this programme will have acquired the necessary skills to develop an export-led business with a focus on R&D and intellectual property creation and protection.
“This programme will provide a platform for skilled and experienced, but currently unemployed, graduates to broaden their knowledge of new and developing global industries. A unique feature of this course is that participants will engage in peer-to-peer learning facilitated by industry experts, leading academics and successful entrepreneurs to create new and innovative enterprises and solve innovation problems,” said Pat O’Donnell from IT Tallaght.
The key outcomes of the EEP programme are:
- Participants will progress to start their own export-led innovative enterprises
- Participants can progress onto other enterprise incubation programmes such as the M50 Enterprise Platform Programme
- Participants can access further education at level 8, 9 and 10 on the NFQ (Masters and PhD)
- Participants will improve their employability profile and be recruited into R&D in the public and private sector
- Participants will achieve a special purpose award in Enterprise Innovation equal to a value of 60 credits at Level 8 on the NFQ accredited by IT Tallaght
