Vincent Cleary, Managing Director, Glenisk, the innovative and award-winning organic yogurt maker, today launched the 15th NovaUCD ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ lunchtime seminar series. The aim of this ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ seminar series, which is organised by NovaUCD in association with the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Enterprise Board, is to promote the importance of design, creativity and innovation among the academic, research and student populations at University College Dublin and beyond.

Pictured at NovaUCD is Vincent Cleary, MD, Glenisk

Speaking in advance of the seminar, Vincent Cleary said, “At Glenisk we believe in innovation and developing a strong collaborative network with all our stakeholders. We believe that the future success of our brand will be based on innovative design, listening to our customers and focusing on growth in exports.” He added. “Initiatives such as the NovaUCD ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ seminar series helps to spread the message of the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship, especially to students, who will be our future business and entrepreneurial leaders.”

Each of the four speakers in the current series will share his/her creative and entrepreneurial experiences in setting up and running successful enterprises. They will also discuss the strategic role that design, creativity and innovation can play in assisting companies to navigate through the current downturn and to place them in pole position to take advantage of the economic recovery to come.

Speaking at the launch of the current series, Dr Pat Frain, Director, NovaUCD, said, “Over the years the ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ seminars have continued to attract large and diverse audiences. This is not surprising given the increasing recognition of the role of universities as an important national resource in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.” He added, “The current series of ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ is particularly important since it concentrates on creativity and design which are two of the essential building blocks for innovation.”

The other speakers in the current series are, Damini Kumar, European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation (10 November); Emmet O’Neill, co-founder and CEO, Smiles Dental (17 November) and Brian Stephens, co-founder and Managing Director, Design Partners (24 November).  

According to Michael Johnson, CEO, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Enterprise Board, “The ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ seminar series is a hugely successful collaboration between our organisation and NovaUCD. By talking openly about their experiences as entrepreneurs, the featured business owners give audiences a valuable insight into the commercial and personal challenges that arise when starting and growing a venture.” He added that, “particularly in the current economic circumstances, there is an urgent need for entrepreneurship to be promoted as a viable career choice and as a means to put Ireland back on the path to growth.”

Each seminar takes place in NovaUCD, Belfield Innovation Park, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4, from 1 pm to 1:50 pm. Attendance is free and all are welcome to register in advance to attend.

Click here for additional information, including registration details.

The ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ seminar with Damini Kumar on 10 November is taking place as part of the Innovation Dublin 2010 festival.

NovaUCD has hosted an ‘Entrepreneurs Live!’ seminar series each Spring and Autumn since 2003 and a total of 78 seminars have now taken place. Previous guest entrepreneurs include; Eamonn Fallon, Daft.ie; Colm Lyon, Realex Payments; Ray Nolan, Worky.com and Dr Eddie O’Connor, Mainstream Renewable Energy. 

ENDS

3 November 2010

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, e-mail: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, tel: (01) 716 3712.

Editors Notes

Speaker Profiles

Vincent Cleary is Managing Director of Glenisk, the innovative, predominantly family-owned and award-winning organic yogurt maker based in Killeigh, Co. Offaly.  Vincent’s father Jack established a dairy product business, Tullamore Dairy in the 1980s. In the mid-1990s Vincent and his siblings took their father’s business into a new direction when they established Glenisk. Originally selling natural dairy products Vincent became aware of the popularity of organic dairy products from overseas work experiences and decided to introduce organic yogurt into the Irish market. 

Glenisk, which now processes about 90% of all organic milk produced in Ireland from 50 farmers, employs a staff of 40 and had a turnover of €12 in 2009 accompanied by a 14.5% sales increase.

The winner of numerous awards Glenisk was the overall winner of the 2010 SFA National Business Award.

Damini Kumar, an award winning designer, is a European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation. She was appointed to this prestigious role by the EU Commission in January 2009 to foster the principles and values of innovation and creativity at all levels of European society.

Damini is an international expert in design, creative thinking and innovation and continues to stimulate an interest in these areas as she believes it is critical to the future of the economy and is regularly asked to advise organisations and governments on these topics.

Headhunted to Ireland in 2004, Damini worked for Media Lab Europe (European partner of Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and began her academic career as a lecturer at the Dublin Institute of Technology in 2006. She joined NUI Maynooth in 2007 where she directed and successfully completed the establishment of a new BSc Honours degree in Product Design before moving to her current role of Director of Design and Creativity.

In 1998 Damini invented the world's first non-drip spout, a worldwide patented award winning innovation, which disproved years of scientific research into the ubiquitous problem of the dripping teapot and can be applied to any pouring spout from bottles to petrol pumps.

Her awards include, winner of The Young British Female Inventor of the Year Award, 2001 and winner of The Asian Young Achiever of the Year Award, 2006.

Emmet O'Neill is CEO and co-founder of Smiles Dental, the largest privately-owned provider of dental care in Ireland. After working in banking and aviation finance, Emmet identified a gap in the market for a specialised tooth whitening clinic in Ireland, and in 2005 he opened the first Smiles Clinic in Dublin. Soon after launch, O'Neill realised that the market was not just for tooth whitening but for all dental services and since 2006 he has opened 13 clinics nationwide offering all forms of dental treatment, from check-ups to cleaning right through to oral surgery and orthodontic treatments. Current locations include Dublin, Wicklow, Cork, Wexford, Galway, Waterford and Louth.

In 2007 the company began acquiring existing dental practices and merging this new transparent approach to delivering dentistry with the traditional relationship based delivery which exists locally.

Smiles Dental, which will treat 150,000 patients in 2010 currently employs over 60 dentists a team of 100 nurses and administration staff. Smiles Dental recently unveliled plans for a €3 million expansion which will create 100 jobs and see 10 new clinics opening around Ireland during 2011.

Emmet, a University College Dublin graduate, was a finalist in the recent 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Awards, Emerging Business Category.

Brian Stephens, is the co-founder and managing director of Design Partners, the Irish design company based in Bray, Co Wicklow. Brian and his team of twenty-six engineers, model makers and designers create new products for international brands particularly in the consumer product sector. Customers include brands such as Le Creuset, Logitech, HP and Palm. 

The company established in 1984 also has an office Silicon Valley, California and has had its work exhibited in New York’s Museum of Modern Art and has been successful in many prestigious international design competitions.

NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre, is the hub of knowledge transfer activities at University College Dublin. NovaUCD is responsible for the commercialisation of intellectual property arising from UCD research and for the development of co-operation with industry and business. NovaUCD as a purpose-built centre also nurtures new technology and knowledge-intensive enterprises. NovaUCD has been funded through a unique public-private partnership that includes AIB Bank, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Enterprise Ireland, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers, UCD and Xilinx.  

The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Enterprise Board is a State Enterprise Development Agency offering support to individuals in the county of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown who are thinking of starting a business and to those who are looking to grow their small business. There are 35 City & County Enterprise Boards located across Ireland and the role of each is to help the development of micro-enterprises (i.e. businesses employing up to 10 people) in their locality.