Green entrepreneurship – free courses with Green Works

13 Jan 2011

Green Works has new green business, green building and sustainable tourism courses on offer, focused on helping progress Ireland’s green economy. It’s also holding an event ‘Collaborative Entrepreneurship and Innovation’ focused on green entrepreneurship.

Green Works is a nationwide education programme that offers free courses to job seekers, with a focus on upskilling the workforce for the growing opportunities within Ireland’s green economy. People can avail of a large variety of themed courses, FETAC certificates, workshops, work placements, lectures and networking.

Green Works

Green Works itself is a collaboration between Cultivate, NICER Training, SysPro and Woodrow Solutions. It’s funded by the Department of Education and Skills, the Labour Market Activation Fund, plus support from the European Social Fund.

Courses cover sustainable living themes ranging from building, business, land use, practical skills and tourism.

COB Sustainable building Class

COB sustainable building class at Green Works

There are four hubs where the courses are run. These are based in Dublin, Cork, Sligo and Tipperary. The selection of courses coming up at all hubs is available online.

Collaborative Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Green Works is holding a “weekend workshop for change makers” on 22 and 23 January 2011 in Dublin.

The aim of the workshop is to look at ways Ireland can use collaborative forms of leadership, innovation, fundraising and community building to strengthen its entrepreneurial and change projects during this tough economic climate.

It will focus on green entrepreneurship, crowd funding, the use of social networking to create business possibilities and community enterprise models.

Leaders in the sustainability area will make short presentations. These will include Simone Poutnik, a social entrepreneur, designer and facilitator of collaborative innovation processes. She initiated and co-founded the Hub Brussels, which is a space for people with ideas for natural innovation.

Hendrik Tiesinga will also be present at the event. He is a co-founder of Natural Innovation and the Finance Innovation Lab, a multi-stakeholder collaboration for sustainable innovation in the financial sector in the UK.

Chris Chapman will speak about his experience in creating safe spaces to support deep and transformational work.

Davie Philip, the communications manager at the Green Works Tipperary Hub who runs the Community Resilience programme at Cultivate, will also make a presentation. He currently sits on the board of the SEAI.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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