Nine social entrepreneurs were awarded €600,000 at the 10th annual Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awards in Dublin last night. SEI presented three Impact Award Winners worth €140,000 each to social entrepreneurs Iseult Ward and Aoibheann O'Brien of FoodCloud, Elizabeth Waters of the Virtual Community College and Karen Leigh of special needs charity Sensational Kids.

A further six social entrepreneurs received a prize worth €30,000 each in the Elevator Award category at the ceremony which was sponsored by listed conglomerate DCC. They included Adam Harris of autism charity AsIAm, Jean O'Brien of Irish Charity Lab and Joan Henderson of Sólás.

Darren Ryan the chief executive of SEI said that since it was founded 10 years ago it had invested €5.82 million and supported 179 social entrepreneurs including organisations such as CoderDojo, Camara and Suas Educational Development.

Mr Ryan said projects in which SEI had invested had affected 290,000 people in Ireland and created 970 positions in the charity and social change sector.

“These social entrepreneurs are all at an early stage of development, and with the right supports have the potential to address a real need in Irish society,” Mr Ryan said. He said about 75 per cent of all projects in which SEI invested were still in existence. “When VCs (venture capital funds) invest, they expect only one in 10 firms to survive. If everyone we invested survived then we would not be taking enough risk,” Mr Ryan said.

“We want to support early-stage entrepreneurs who can be leaders in their field and have the potential to scale their ideas.”

Tommy Breen, the chief executive of DCC, said: "We are proud to continue our support of the SEI Awards. It is a great privilege to play a role in supporting Ireland's brightest and most ambitious entrepreneurs working to have a positive impact on our society."