Ernst & Young launches third-level initiative to inspire future entrepreneurs

18 Feb 2013

Frank O'Keeffe, partner, Ernst & Young; Barbra Gergely, TCD student; Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, TD; Oisín O'Sullivan, TCD student; and Anne Heraty, CEO, Cpl Resources, at the launch of the EOYUniversity initiative

Ernst & Young is teaming up with third-level institutions in Ireland to create a new initiative dubbed ‘EOYUniversity’, with the aim of inspiring students in entrepreneurship.

Past winners and finalists from Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year programme will be delivering seminars to third-level students from any academic field, be it business, science or technology.

So far, Ernst & Young has teamed up with several universities in Ireland to deliver the programme: University College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork (UCC), NUI Maynooth, University of Limerick, NUI Galway and University of Ulster.

A pilot programme has already been carried out at UCC, involving more than 450 students.

According Frank O’Keeffe, a partner at Ernst & Young who is over the Entrepreneur of the Year programme, the aim of the new initiative is to support academia in reaching out to the business community.

“Regardless of whether they go on to found businesses, young people who benefit from entrepreneurial learning develop business knowledge, essential skills, attitudes, understanding of risk and a sense of responsibility,” he said.

Ernst & Young has also teamed up with Triona Campbell of BeActive, an alumnus of the Entrepreneur Of The Year programme, to develop an online educational platform on YouTube in which Irish entrepreneurs share their insights.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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