Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur LEO Dublin City Awards 2015
Pictured : Isolde Johnson, Cool Bean Company, 2015 LEO Dublin City Entrepreneur
At a ceremony in the Hilton Hotel, Kilmainham, on 7th October 2015, the IBYE 2015 LEO Dublin City Awards were made for Dublin City’s best business idea, best start-up business and best existing business, as well as an overall award for the best young entrepreneur in Dublin City.
The LEO Dublin City winners were:
- Best New Idea : John Horrigan, Cara Mobility Design, (Investment of €10,000)
- Best Start Up Business : Isolde Johnson, The Cool Bean Company, (Investment of €20,000)
- Best Established Business : Jamie White, Youth Nation, (Investment of €20,000)
Isolde Johnson, The Cool Bean Company was also named as Dublin City’s “Best Young Entrepreneur”.
Each Dublin City winner will now progress to the Regional finals in which they will compete to go through to National finals. Ultimately, they will compete to be named Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur.
114 application were received. The following 15 companies were shortlisted to pitch before a Judging panel.
LEO Dublin City Finalist Information:
The finalists in the New Idea category were:
| John Horrigan | Cara Mobility Design | Cara Mobility Design, is an assistive living product which empowers wheelchair users by enhancing their confidence, connectivity and most importantly their health and well-being. |
| Joseph Lanzillotta | BLazer | We are building a system that will save the honeybees. The system removes mites from bees as they enter and exit the hive. It also monitors the levels of mites being removed daily and provides further data analytics to give the beekeeper a better idea of the hive health. |
| Cailín Maguire | An Beile Blasta | "An Béile Blasta" is an Irish Language café in Dublin City Centre. Our two key objectives are to deliver high quality Irish food to customers while also promoting the use of the Irish language among the public, from fluent Gaelgeoirs to complete beginners" |
| Sean Óg Ó Laoire | College eBooks | "College-eBooks" is a subscription based academic book service in conjunction with educational institutes, colleges and universities. It’s purpose is to provide an eBooks service online, accessible to students |
The Dublin City winner in this category was John Horrigan, Cara Mobility Design, and he has won an investment of €10,000.
The finalists in the Start-Up category were:
Catherine Buggy | Boutique Bake | At Boutique Bake we produce a range of baking mixes with natural ingredients for bakers of all abilities and for those short on time but who also do not want to compromise on quality. |
Lukas Decker | Coindrum | Coindrum operates self-service machines in airports that passengers use to convert unwanted coins into duty free retail vouchers, especially when departing to different currency countries. |
Orme De Saint Hilaire | Hive | Hive enables groups to engage intelligently with their members, providing tools to increase retention and involvement within groups |
Robert Fenton | Zendoc | ZenDoc is a web based quality management platform that streamlines quality for small and mid sized life sciences companies. It does this by eliminating the painful paperwork processes required by regulators like the FDA. |
Isolde Johnson | The Cool Bean Company | The Cool Bean Company creates no fuss no nonsense superhero food. |
Darren McKenna | The Light Room | We are a film and animation production company who have, in a very short space of time, successfully established ourselves within the industry. Our creative outlook and innovative style has been recognised and sought out but some of the worlds largest brands. |
The Dublin City winner in this category was Isolde Johnson, The Cool Bean Company, and she has won an investment of €20,000.
The finalists in the Established category were:
Brian Lee | Chopped | Chopped is a healthy food concept that was one of the first to set up in Ireland to meet the needs of the growing health conscious consumer. |
Christian Kortenhorst | CK Solutions | CK Computer Solutions offers an honest, competitive and comprehensive outsourced IT support for Small to Medium sized businesses. |
Jamie White | Youth Nation | Youth Nation is a collection of online magazines that cater to the interests of 14 - 24 year olds attracting a growing 150,000+ readers daily. |
Patrick Garry | Loylap | LoyLap connects physical businesses digitally with their customers. We provide businesses with the technology to move all existing customer facing activities mobile, including payments, loyalty, gift cards and social, and then we provide them with the support to use these technologies to their best ability providing a clear and discernible return on investment for the business |
Anthony O'Neill | Clarity Locums | Clarity Locums is Ireland's fastest growing pharmacy recruitment agency (currently over 1000 pharmacists, >€1m turnover). Clarity has experienced consistent, linear growth since inception and while we are currently number two, we are on course to be market leaders by 2016. |
The Dublin City winner in this category was Jamie White, Youth Nation, and he has won an investment of €20,000.
Details around Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition are available through www.ibye.ie and information on supports for all small businesses can be accessed through www.localenterprise.ie.
