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Irish Examiner, 6th September 2007
Asked to apply their business skills to develop Third World ventures, some of Ireland's top entrepreneurs happily rose to the challenge, reports Ailin Quinlan.
Imagine going to a Third World country and setting up a viable business from scratch. Imagine the difficulties; a foreign language, poor or non-existent transport, unreliable phone and internet facilities and the impact of unfamiliar social patterns or local customs on normal business transactions.
That was the challenge handed to three Irish entrepreneurs at the 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. GOAL's John O'Shea challenged winners of the awards to take one week out of their lives and travel to a third-world country to create initiatives to help local communities help themselves.
In late spring of 2006, three of Ireland's top businessmen headed to Africa, Jerry Kenneally, founder of Stockbyte went to Kenya, Michael Carey of Jacob Fruitfield headed for Malawi and Aidan Heavey of Tullow Oil journeyed to Uganda to put viable businesses in place to help local communities.
The three men, whose efforts were last year filmed as part of a documentary series on the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Challenge, this week feature in the first programme of a new four-part RTE series beginning tonight, Thursday, Septemeber 6th. The programme examines how Kenneally, Carey and Heavey got on in Africa over the past year. The remaining three episodes monitor the progress of other business-people, including the Cork-based food entrepreneurs Cully & Sully, who travelled to Asia in a bid to help local communities develop sustainable businesses.
For Kerry entrepreneur Jerry Kenneally, founder of Stockbyte and winner of the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year category 2005, the challenges involved in setting up a tourism business in Kenya were formidable.
His business, Create Africa, is a publisher of high quality souvenir material, pumping out more than 150 products, ranging from postcards to calendars, and employing two people. The idea - to develop entrepreneurship in Kenya and assist charities working there. A percentage of the revenues go directly to GOAL and ICROSS, who are both operating there.
Episode Three: Thursday, September 20, 10.45pm - Frankie Whelehan, Sri Lanka
CEO of the Choice Hotel Group, Frankie Whelehan travels to Sri Lanka, where the local economy is still recovering from the tsunami from over two years ago. Frankie identifies an opportunity to set up a cottage textiles industry, finds a premises for his new enterprise and purchases sewing machines, in order to get the work started as quickly as possible.
Episode Four: Thursday, September 27, 10.45pm - Anne Heraty, India
Anne Heraty travels to Kolkata (formally Calcutta), to the Sunderbans, an area suffering from environmental problems. Anne, CEO of the international human resources company CPL, encourages a number of women to set up a co-op, where they can manage their agricultural resources more powerfully.
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