‘We have to compete as a country to become a global start-up hub’ – Startup Ireland CEO

9 Sep 2015

Eoin Costello, CEO, Startup Ireland. Photo by Luke Maxwell

At the announcement of more than 300 events set to take place nationwide for the first Startup Gathering, Eoin Costello detailed Startup Ireland’s ambition to create a ‘start-up island’.

Startup Gathering 2015 launched yesterday (8 September) in Dublin’s NDRC, with Minister of State for Business and Employment Ged Nash TD hailing it as one of the biggest start-up events in the world.

It’s not a hyperbolic statement considering the Startup Gathering will incorporate more than 300 events across five days in five different cities and other regions across Ireland. The key themes of these events will be how to start, scale and succeed in Ireland.

“We have to compete as a country. The competition to be at the top of global start-up hubs now is intense,” said Eoin Costello, CEO of Startup Ireland, a collective of public and private partners who plan to make a Ireland a global start-up hub by 2020.

Start-up support

“The goal of the Startup Gathering is to create the cohesion between all the various players in the start-up ecosystem – be it the investors, the research centres, the multinationals, the state agencies – all around supporting the entrepreneurs within Ireland,” said Costello.

‘The competition to be at the top of global start-up hubs now is intense’
– EOIN COSTELLO, STARTUP IRELAND

Bank of Ireland, one of the event’s lead sponsors, forms part of this ecosystem by providing work spaces for budding companies in Dublin and Galway, with promises of more to come.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD commended the contribution of “those people who have the courage to start up” and Bank of Ireland’s David Tighe explained how an established company can benefit from supporting and engaging with start-ups.

“My role as head of innovation for Bank of Ireland is to look for really strong, good fintech within Ireland,” he said.

“We’re starting to see a lot of those companies and start-ups coming through and we want to support them in multiple ways.”

Startup Gathering takes place from 5 to 10 October, with events in Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Galway, as well as regional events in the northeast and northwest.

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

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