Entrepreneur contest launched

An €80,000 award for the most impressive new Irish entrepreneur or enterprise was launched yesterday at the Storehouse in Dublin.

The competition, now in its third year, was set up in honour of the late David Manley, a former president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, who assisted many small and emerging companies during his time at the chamber. The competition is open to companies that have been in business for at least one year, but not more than three, with an innovative product or service who can demonstrate business success.

The entrant must be a current or recent participant in an enterprise support programme being run by one of the SME Enterprise support agencies or College Innovation Centres in Dublin and must be nominated by that agency.

"There are many successful and thriving small businesses in Ireland today that benefited from David Manley's enterprising spirit and we are delighted to continue his work in some small way with this award," said David Pierce, chairman of the Friends of David Manley committee.

The €80,000 prize includes €10,000 in cash and €70,000 worth of consultancy and mentoring services from companies including Deloitte, Beauchamps Solicitors, Alexander Dunlop, and Newmarket Partnership and Professional Development.

Last year the award was won by Moving Media, a specialist provider of media digitisation, encoding and digital content management services to the owner of sound and image collections.

The closing date for this year's entries is the beginning of September.