Genesis Recuritment Programme

[caption id=“attachment_355” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Genesis Recuritment Programme”] [/caption]

Genesis – Turning Ideas into Real Business CIT now recruiting for 2011 Genesis Enterprise Programme

How do you turn your idea into a real business? When it comes to starting or expanding your business, it’s usually not the idea that fails but the execution that wins. To survive and win in today’s global markets, Irish start-ups need to be expert not just in the idea or product but also in designing and executing the business around the idea. The highly successful Genesis Enterprise Programme helps entrepreneurs develop their ideas into real exporting businesses. Genesis is now recruiting entrepreneurs for its new 2011/12 programme commencing in May 2011.

Now in its 14th year, Genesis has a proven track record in helping over 180 entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. And, the real measure of its success is that more than 70% of the start-up businesses who emerged from the Genesis programme are in operation five years on, employing well over 1,200 people in the South West of Ireland. At a time when exports have never been so important to the future of our economy, over 50% of the businesses emerging from Genesis are selling to customers in international markets. Many have become Enterprise Ireland “High Potential Start-Ups” and raised significant angel and venture capital investment.

Putting the Programme into real terms, some well-known businesses that started life in Genesis include Abtran, Crest Solutions, Cully & Sully, Comnitel/IBM, Eolas International, Ferfics, Radisen Diagnostics, Treemetrics, Weddingdates.ie, and Wavebreak Media. The emphasis of Genesis has always been to support high value, knowledge based Irish owned businesses, which have the potential to scale into export markets and create employment in Ireland. Genesis works with start-ups across a diversity of sectors including energy and environmental, food, photonics, information technology, mechanical engineering, medical devices, biotechnology, media and internationally traded services.

So how does it work? Genesis is a 12-month, full time, rapid incubation programme that provides a comprehensive range of supports to innovative start-ups to help them establish their business successfully in a planned and focused environment. Over the duration of the programme they will be presented with the practical skills, expertise, contact networks and tools necessary to develop an idea into a solid real business.

Participants learn through seminars, workshops, clinics, mentoring and peer learning meetings. Business milestones are set for their development and their progress is guided by a dedicated Programme Manager, Denise Kennedy, and the experienced Rubicon team and its wider network of experts, as well as ready access to the programme partners including Cork Institute of Technology, Enterprise Ireland and the Cork City & County Enterprise Boards. Along the way, they learn how talk to the market, raise investment capital and launch their product/service in the marketplace. Information and access to sources of business funding is one of the most critical areas that Genesis works with start-ups on. Participants can work at their own location or take advantage of free office facilities in the Rubicon Centre, Ireland’s largest incubation centre, embedded on campus in the Cork Institute of Technology.

The work of the Genesis Enterprise Programme and Cork Institute of Technology in developing entrepreneurs in Ireland was recognised in the EU’s European Enterprise Awards 2010 in Madrid. Genesis won an award for best practice in enterprise development from a field of over 300 projects across 28 countries.

Genesis attributes its success in enabling the emergence of new companies to its significant experience gained from a 14 year history of working with start ups and the rich entrepreneurial environment that has grown up around the programme. Genesis participants can leverage and learn from the network of past participants operating both in the Rubicon Centre and beyond in the South West region, the practical expertise of one-to-one clinics and mentors and to the resources of the programme partners in Cork Institute of Technology, Enterprise Ireland and the Cork City & County Enterprise Boards.

If you want to gain the commercial advantage that Genesis offers for your business start up, applications for the upcoming 2011/2012 Genesis Enterprise Programme can be made online by visiting www.gep.ie. The closing date for applications is Friday 8th April 2011 with the new programme commencing in May. For an informal and confidential discussion of your business idea and eligibility, please contact Denise Kennedy, Programme Manager, at 021 4928907 or dkennedy@gep.ie

The Programme is funded by the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment under the National Development Plan 2007 – 2013.