5/26/14 - University College Dublin

*Even though I am writing this post today, it's about yesterday. :)

Today we moved over to University College Dublin, about 20 minutes from the City Centre. It's a great campus with a lot of new buildings and student-friendly features. They have a Centra (Irish convenience store chain) in the center of campus that has everything from fresh fruits and veggies to liquid dish soap and dinner plates. It's just a beautiful campus in general and I've really enjoyed being here so far.

We left the City Centre early in the morning and went straight to a classroom at UCD. Throughout the day, we were fortunate enough to listen to presentations by 5 Irish entrepreneurs about their endeavors, struggles, and thoughts about effective leadership. In particular, I enjoyed Professor Patrick Cunningham from IdentiGEN
and Peter Lennox from Enterprise Ireland.

IdentiGEN is an Irish company that specializing in tracing protein (aka determining the composition, animal and country source of meats). This is a critical function is the age of globalized food production and trading, as it can be difficult for the average consumer to know where there meat actually came from. It can also help prevent disease outbreaks by being able to quickly and accurately identify the source of these diseases and stop them.

Enterprise Ireland is actually a government agency in Ireland that is responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets. EI helps start ups and small businesses secure the resources and some of the funding they need to reach their goals. It was especially interesting to me because it shows how invested in small businesses the Irish government is. In America, we don't have a comparable agency or organization and small business isn't really valued as much. 

All of the speakers had some commonalities in their message. Essentially, it is best to communicate early and often and to be direct, know who you are in business with, and be prepared for failure (and know how to deal with it and move on). It was a very enlightening day and I learned so much about what it takes to start a business and be a successful leader.