The National Student Enterprise Competition is designed to boost the spirit of enterprise in the institute of technology sector. Louise Holdenreports
The jury's still out on whether the elusive "entrepreneurial spirit" can be taught, but it's no harm to create a supportive environment for Ireland's bright young things while they are learning.
That's the thinking behind the National Student Enterprise Competition, designed to draw potential entrepreneurs out of the shadows of the Institute of Technology (IoT) sector.
It's not the first competition of its kind in Ireland - Enterprise Ireland has been running a similar scheme for years - but its profile has been enhanced by the patronage of Denis O'Brien, one of Ireland's most famous entrepreneurs.
O'Brien has come up with a carrot that last year piqued the interest of more than 250 teams of enterprising students: a week in the Caribbean witnessing first hand the roll-out of Digicel in Suriname.
"Entrepreneurs come from all sorts of backgrounds, not just business," says Tom Cooney, director of the Institute for Minority Entrepreneurship at DIT. "Bringing a diverse range of talents to the process is important, and we had considerable success on that front in the first year. Many teams were made up of students from across different faculties."
The winning team, from Galway Mayo IT, was comprised of students from business, marketing and human resources.
According to the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, Ireland ranks third in the EU in terms of early-stage entrepreneurial activity. The danger now, according to Cooney, is that we will level out while other nations push ahead.
The 2002 Goodbody Report on Entrepreneurship in Ireland identified the education sector as a key player in the nurturing of young business talent. So why has the IoT sector been targeted in this case?
"We felt that there was already a lot of investment in the university sector," says Cooney. "The competition programme is a good fit for the IoT sector because it is very practical and entirely based on case study work, which is similar to the learning approach in IoT faculties."
Developing Ireland's entrepreneurial stock is a complicated business. Many young Irish males are attracted by the idea of setting up their own businesses, but other groups may be less inclined to take risks. The Institute for Minority Entrepreneurship was established in March 2006 to offer support and information to entrepreneurs outside the Irish mainstream - women, gays, Travellers, over-50s, people with disabilities and from ethnic communities, home-based entrepreneurs and those based in Gaeltacht areas.
Cooney has noticed encouraging advances by women into the entrepreneurial realm; this year more than half of the students electing to take the module on entrepreneurship in DIT were female. Encouraging female entrepreneurship has been identified as an important element in raising Irish enterprise levels overall, as the number of Irish female entrepreneurs is low in comparison with other European countries.
The National Student Enterprise Competition has also drawn a balance of male and female participants. A number of teams were also made up of international students, including one of the semi-finalists.
Using a case study format, the competition challenges teams of four to research real life companies and devise a successful business plan for each one. The case studies are based on companies with immediate business obstacles to overcome.
The businesses involved have been more than willing to put themselves forward for a student makeover, says Cooney. "We only deal with private companies, as there would be obvious confidentiality issues associated with publicly owned interests. In the main, these companies have been happy to open themselves up to Irish students."
Many chief executives have availed of the opportunity to tap into some free business consultancy, and have come to the presentations to listen to the suggestions of the students. For some of the companies, the issues at hand are make-or-break problems; others have simply reached a first stage plateau and need some ideas in order to grow.
Each team is given three hours with a case to study and access to the internet. At the end of the session they must present their ideas to a panel of judges. The judges then choose teams to go on to the nationals heats. The final this year was judged by Paul Farrell of The Irish Times, Elaine Geraghty of Newstalk 106 and Anne Heraghty, chief executive of CPL Recruitment.
This year, the competition has been extended to include Limerick IT and the National College of Ireland, and participation promises to match of exceed the first year's. The finals will take place in Galway early next year.
It's the hard edge of learning for these students. Instead of sitting in a lecture theatre learning business theory from text books, they are getting their hands on live business guinea pigs.
The lure of the challenge was enough to attract 259 teams from 14 Institutes of Technology last year. The winners so impressed Digicel boss O'Brien that he decided to extend their week in Suriname to three-month placement in two new Digicel locations.
For the four winning GMIT students, that's some high-level networking.
The Irish Timesis a media partner of the National Student Enterprise Competition
