About GEN in Ireland

Ireland was among the 77 founding countries when Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) launched in 2008 and established a formal national campaign in 2011 with Think Ireland Inc., led by David Bradley and Maree Morrissee, as the official host organization. That first structured edition mobilized 8,600 participants across 34 partners and 47 activities — a swift demonstration of the appetite for a nationally coordinated entrepreneurship platform. Prime Minister Enda Kenny lent his voice to the effort from the outset, underscoring the government’s view that entrepreneurship was central to Ireland’s economic recovery and global standing. The Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) initiative connected Ireland’s startup community to a worldwide network of entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and policymakers through a shared, structured campaign. 

By 2014, GEW Ireland had expanded to include more than 100 primary schools nationwide, and the Think Ireland Inc. publishing team produced a magazine dedicated to Global Entrepreneurship Week, distributed through the Financial Times worldwide, reaching 1.3 million readers. The 2016 GEW Ireland campaign — run under the national theme Startup Centenary Conversations and timed to Ireland’s national centenary — reached 25,000 participants through 500 events and 356 partners. That edition brought together presidents from seven universities and three institutes of technology through partner Bizworld, and saw the Irish Times carry 150,000 copies of a special national GEN Magazine. Ministerial backing has been a consistent feature of the campaign: in 2021, Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail Damien English, TD, formally launched GEW Ireland, a launch that coincided with Meath Enterprise unveiling a new co-working hub in Dunshaughlin, a Digital Media Lab in Navan, and the Boyne Valley Food Hub — a commercial kitchen and food R&D facility. During GEW 2021, the government also announced QHubs, a new national quality standards framework for Ireland’s 350-plus enterprise hub and co-working sector — the first of its kind in the world — funded by Enterprise Ireland and coordinated by the Community Enterprise Association Ireland (CEAI). 

Meath Enterprise, led by CEO Gary O’Meara — a long-term partner of Think Ireland Inc., and now GEN Ambassador to Ireland — became the official GEW host organization for Ireland in 2020 and has coordinated the national campaign across numerous editions of the week. 

Ireland has been an active participant in GEN’s Startup Nations policy community. In 2014, the country issued a National Policy Statement on Entrepreneurship — referenced in GEN’s global policy research as a model for integrating disparate agency efforts under a cohesive national framework. Siobhan Finn, then at Cork Innovates, and Thomas Cooney of the Dublin Institute of Technology — a long-standing member of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network (GERN) — have both contributed to the Startup Nations policy community, alongside Andrew Parish and Eion Costello, co-founders of Startup Ireland. Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Assistant Secretary David Hegarty and Enterprise Ireland Entrepreneurship Manager Sheelagh Daly have also engaged in the Startup Nations community. 

Ireland’s most significant moment in GEN’s global event calendar came in November 2016, when Cork became the first European city to host the Startup Nations Summit (SNS). Prime Minister Enda Kenny announced the selection during a visit to Cork, and the three-day program — co-hosted by Cork Innovates and Startup Ireland, with Siobhan Finn as project director, and supported by Enterprise Ireland — drew leaders from more than 70 countries. The President of the European Committee of the Regions, Markku Markkula, and U.S. State Department Director of Global Entrepreneurship Thomas Lersten were among the participants. The Summit also served as the launch platform for the GEN Atlas, a global online portal enabling governments to share and benchmark startup policy innovations. Running in parallel, the Startup Island Bootcamp on Spike Island — a former prison off the coast of Cork, sponsored by Bank of Ireland and supported by RTÉ — brought together more than 150 startups for an intensive program of masterclasses and pitching sessions. 

Irish startups have competed in the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC) since the competition’s global launch in 2019. The EWC connects entrepreneurs from more than 200 countries to mentorship, investor networks, and a global prize pool. Ireland has produced finalists across multiple editions: OACP IE LTD, a biotech company that reduces the time and cost of cancer genetic testing, reached the Top 100 in 2020, 2024, and 2025; P4ML Ltd, a personalized medicine company, qualified in 2022; and Samanta Ltd, a virtual human intelligence application, advanced in 2024. In 2021, the Halo Business Angel Network (HBAN) — Ireland’s largest angel network, with more than 15 groups across Ireland and abroad — joined GEN’s Global Business Angels Network (GBAN), connecting Irish investors to a global community focused on cross-border investing and regulatory advocacy. 

GEN maintains extensive relationships with key Irish ecosystem stakeholders, including Meath Enterprise, the Community Enterprise Association Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the Halo Business Angel Network, the Guinness Enterprise Centre, NDRC, Dogpatch Labs, the Dublin Institute of Technology, University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, Allied Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland, and the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment.  

Jonathan Ortmans, Founder and President of GEN, has engaged directly with Ireland’s ecosystem on multiple occasions — visiting key stakeholders ahead of the 2016 Startup Nations Summit bid and participating in GEW flagship events in both Dublin and Cork. GEN continues to work with Meath Enterprise and Ireland’s broader ecosystem to connect Irish founders, investors, and policymakers to the global entrepreneurship community.