09 April, 2019

The Hincks Centre provided a successful four hour workshop on entrepreneurial skills and awareness for persons over 65 years as part of the Lifelong Learning Festival on the 9th April 2019. This workshop took place in the Rubicon Business Incubator centre and 6 entrepreneurial individuals participated in four hours of training. A Rísam funded PhD, SmARtEST (or Smart Ageing and Renewal through Entrepreneurial Skills Training) seeks to understand if an entrepreneurial mindset might help people to stay active as they age. The four hours opened with an introduction to older entrepreneurship and the different ways entrepreneurial skills might be useful in later life.

Next, George Bulman, Rubicon Manager, gave an introduction to the work carried out by the incubator centre and spoke about funding, getting an idea, doing your market research, and pricing. George reminded us to take a picture with your first customer, the first big milestone on an entrepreneurial journey. Sorcha McMahon, the Enterprise Intern in CIT provided a guided tour of the facilities. She explained the various business start-ups that call the Rubicon their home and explained the Rubicon Centre’s Idea Generation Cube with 12 individual desks that can be booked on an hourly, daily, weekly, or bi-weekly basis.

After a short tea-break, it was time to get active learning entrepreneurial skills learning through play. We made time for a fun, entrepreneurial exercise involving paper airplanes and teamwork.

Photography by Darragh Kane

We saved the best for last when older entrepreneur, Dermot Twomey, of Healthy You Seaweed Salads spoke about his experience of starting his business in 2010, how it is important not to invest more than you can afford to lose, how ‘everyone needs a reason to get up in the mornings’ and how entrepreneurship provides this reason for him. 

After a short recap of the fastest four hours, we got to dig into the delicious sandwiches and taste the Healthy You Seaweed Salads. It was great to see us make the Echo as ‘CIT Centre Doing the Business for the over 65s’!

If you would like to know more about SmARtEST (Smart Ageing and Renewal through Entrepreneurial Skills Training), please contact Sarah by email at sarah.davis@mycit.ie or by phone on 021 - 432 6204.