Recently at the GROWTHhub we have had lots of great guest speakers, from lots of different industries.

On Thursday the 9th of November, we were joined by Karen Harris one of the founders and Directors of local business,  Dunmore East Adventure Center.

Karen gave a great talk about how she started her business with two of her friends in a local pub and how they went on become a very large and popular adventure activity center in Waterford. Karen also shared the challenges of having a seasonal business and how she works around it. This year Dunmore East Adventure Centre celebrated 30 years in business!

On Wednesday 15h of November, we were delighted to have been joined by Michael Kelly , founder of GIY to share his entrepreneurial journey with our students.

Michael shared how his journey started with, when he was buying garlic in the supermarket, that read ‘product of China’. This is when Michael realised how far the that garlic had traveled to reach his local supermarket and this is when Michael decided to start growing his own vegetables. Michael has since created GIY groups all over the country, helping people grow their own vegetables, while also creating Grow HQ and even going forward to have presented/produced three series of Grow Cook Eat for RTE which is now watched around the world on Amazon Prime. Michael’s talk was truly inspirational!

On Thursday the Intellectual Property Office of Ireland joined us. The Intellectual Property Office of Ireland is the official Irish government body responsible for intellectual property (IP) rights including patents, designs, trade marks and copyright.  They gave us great insight into how to protect our business ideas.  We were also joined by Conor Walsh from Visor MMC, who gave us a great insight into his company and his own experience of filing a patent application.

Also on Thursday 16th of November we were joined by Des McAuliffe, Group Commercial Manager at Dornan Engineering.  Des spoke to a range of students from the School of Engineering about his experience in industry, large scale projects he has worked on and job opportunity’s for our students for their placement. The students really enjoyed this talk as it gave them an insight into what the future might hold for them!

Thank you to all our guest speakers for joining us here at the GROWTHhub!!