€25k ESB Spark of Genius Award 2015 call-up begins

16 Jul 2015

Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave with ESB executive director of Innovation Paul Mulvaney.

If your tech start-up has what it takes to battle your peers and vie for a €25,000 prize fund, your time is now. The call has been issued for the ESB Spark of Genius Award 2015.

The ESB Spark of Genius 2015 winning company will be named at this year’s Web Summit in November.

The ESB Spark of Genius Award focuses on high potential technology start-ups and is open to any Irish start-up that has been in operation for less than three years and has received less than €1m in funding to date.

Entrants will be judged on the uniqueness of their idea, their level of development thus far, and their potential for future growth.

This is the fifth year that ESB has been supporting the Spark of Genius Awards. Past winners of the ESB Spark of Genius Award include Love & Robots, Viddyad and SmartThings, which was recently acquired by Samsung for a reported US$200m, and Datahug.

Ideas showcase

“We are committed to innovation and technology in order to enhance the lives of all our customers and this award creates a global platform for young Irish entrepreneurs to showcase their companies and their ideas,” said Paul Mulvaney, executive director of innovation at ESB.

“Previous winners have proven that they are worthy recipients by the continued success of their technology businesses both in Ireland and internationally.”

ESB Spark of Genius applications are open from today until midnight 1 September, 2015.

A shortlist of 15 finalists will be announced, with all finalists pitching their business plans to a panel of judges on the evening of Wednesday 16 September.

The three finalists will go on to feature in a pitch competition at the Web Summit in the RDS in November and the winner will be announced live on stage.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com