Caelainn Hogan
Counter to the endless talk of economic crisis and emigration, there is now, more than ever, a wealth of innovative and entrepreneurial projects and businesses being set up and run by students, proving there is still hope for Ireland and the “Celtic cubs” generation. There are also a growing number of initiatives and competitions being set up to encourage and support entrepreneurship among students in Ireland, crucial to creating new jobs, recovering the economy and rebuilding Ireland’s reputation. Theo Dorgan, in a speech to graduating students at UCC, rightly stated “A certain kind of Ireland is over and we are well rid of it. There is a new Ireland to be imagined and worked for, a new kind of Ireland to build and it is you who must build it.” This is not a project for the future, but an urgent undertaking our generation needs start on immediately. As Ireland’s top university, Trinity students have a responsibility to forget the culture of entitlement we were brought up in and to forge a new society based on motivation, innovation and a lot of elbow grease. There are many students in Trinity who already are setting the standard for innovation, making the most of the available opportunities and support, with some becoming successful entrepreneurs even before graduation.
Mark Zuckerburg, the world's most famous student entrepreneur?
Final year politics student Daniel Bowman set up his consultancy agency Spark in his first year of college, helped set up the Trinity Student Managed Fund which was founded last year, the first of its kind in Ireland, and has recently created the innovative Tell Us Why? (www.telluswhy.ie) which puts prospective TDs under the spotlight. Bowman, speaking on the SMF, stated that “You rarely get the chance to be involved in something at the beginning that will potentially last for generations”. Tell Us Why? is equally a new political forum which complements the need for quickly accessible information, and the pressing need for political awareness among students and Irish people in general, to ensure greater accountability in Irish politics. Bowman sees positive consequences of the economic crisis, particularly a change in mentality amongst students, from a “culture of entitlement” where free education, a good job and easy promotion was expected, to a new appreciation for the opportunities we still have, and a willingness to work hard and make the best of them. “We’re actually lucky with our generation” he says, “because we saw the potential for good things but it didn’t settle in with us too much, so we’re able to cop on.” Having completed a Start Your Own Business course that was heavily subsidised by the Dublin Enterprise Board, he warns that the government must “make sure that we aren’t cutting back funding which actually is going to bring new jobs.” Bowman would like to see more support from college for student entrepreneurship, suggesting more initiatives that bring entrepreneurial and business students together with students doing science and technology subjects, to combine ideas and energy with the skills to create and promote them. He states that, at a time when college is having financial difficulty, “It’d be great if the college could invest in student projects and ultimately reap the benefits”. We only have to look as far as France to notice the positive impact student projects can have. The Etalab recently organized the Open Data Campus, which was hugely successful and resulted in four projects being presented to Web’11. Franck de Védrines was among the participants.
Final year BESS student Garret Dargan saw such a model of college investment in student businesses during his exchange at Babson College in Massachusetts, the top business school for entrepreneurship. Babson’s FME program, Garrett explains, “is a mandatory program in Babson which is taken by every student. So by the time each student reaches second year, they all have first-hand experience in Entrepreneurship and are not just reading about it in a text book.” Similar to Bowman, Dargan suggested that Trinity could focus on programmes “which involve identifying a problem which Entrepreneurs and Engineers work together to create an innovative product, could be something Trinity could look at seeing as we have all the relevant schools in Trinity.”
Liam Ryan is further proof that students who follow an idea and put in the hard work can be seriously successful. A final year engineering student, Ryan is the joint CEO of Safe Text (safetext.ie), the company which helps women remember to take their oral contraception, winning the ‘One to Watch’ 2010 Eircom Golden Spider Award and ‘Most Innovative Website’ at the 2010 Irish Web Awards. Over the next while Ryan says the company will create 10 new jobs from software design to admin and although he stresses the importance of hard work, he says it’s “the most fun I’ve ever had.” Unfortunately, Ryan says that many services, such as the banks, made setting up his business overly difficult, and as a student it was “really hard to be taken seriously”. He said everyone in the business from his bank manager to the person printing his business cards was “wishing him the world” but then turning him down for such things as a simple credit card system for his site. This attitude he says is needlessly “blocking potential”. He says that Trinity’s engineering faculty on the contrary were hugely supporting, and he believes that among students, despite the economic crisis, “innovation is growing at a huge rate”. His advice to students would be to “Just go for it, you’ll find the support, take every opportunity”.
Liam Ryan (right), from safetext.ie, being presented with their ‘One to Watch’ Award at the eircom Spiders Awards Ceremony.
Trinity students Ciara Begley, Julianne Cox and Ross Curran, inspired by Theo Dorgan’s speech, set up Wikipol, a political forum event held on February 19th, which brought together a large contingency of students and guest speakers such as journalist Mark Little, to work out what issues were most important to students and what change they wanted from the new Irish government. They found their political science lecturer Elaine Byrne extremely supportive, “she helped us secure funding, develop the idea and helped secure guests to come”, and they also found financial support from the Irish Times who donated 400 euro. However, in terms of support from college in general, they admitted “It does feel like we’ve had impediment after impediment”, finding that “[college] don’t seem to like one society communicating with other societies about an event which isn’t in the remit of one society’s constitution.” They hoped that “the success of this will promote the idea that you have to be more lenient”, giving students easier access to communicate with the student body as a whole and also to promote engagement between all clubs and societies.
Third year medicine student Callum Swift, is the director of two successful downhill mountain biking films, his first in 2008/9 being ‘The Uprising’ which he produced entirely by himself, selling it through Europe’s largest online bike store. The profits funded his second film ‘MADE’ in 2009/10, featuring the world’s top riders, with sponsorship several large companies and distributed worldwide. Concentrating on his studies for now, Swift continues with side projects, short travel documentaries, as well as filming the promotional videos for the new Ents Officer Chris O Connor’s electoral campaign. Swift sees positives in the economic crisis, “It’s fostering a culture of professionalism and doing a really good job, because otherwise no one’s going to notice you.” He also emphasises the importance of online social networking for new businesses, explaining, “all my promotion is done entirely over the internet; it’s free, it’s viral”.
From the above, it is clear there are many students with the talent and motivation to pursue entrepreneurial projects and new business ideas, but it will be the responsibility of the next government to ensure that despite funding cuts, funds that enable support systems such as the Dublin Enterprise Board, which make possible the creation of new businesses and jobs, are protected. Every effort must be made to ensure that students with innovative projects have the opportunity to make their ideas a reality, enriching our economy and creating jobs. It should not be seen as a cost, but an investment in a brighter Irish future.
