Connected hubs changing and driving new business and working life across Mayo
Despite the Covid pandemic, the ATU Mayo iHub in Castlebar has gone from strength to strength.
Since opening in 2006, the hub has been the starting place for new businesses to set up. Following the onset of the pandemic, it has also offered a place for people looking to work remotely.
The hub has a blend of dedicated desks, boardrooms, booths and hot desks. They also run a number of support programmes including New Frontiers and EMPOWER to support female entrepreneurship.
Last year saw EMPOWER, aimed at female entrepreneurship, receive its biggest applications with over 250 applications for 34 places.
Maria Staunton, manager of the ATU iHub in Mayo, told The Connaught Telegraph: "The importance of a centre such as the iHub in supporting start-ups and small enterprises to grow and scale cannot be underestimated. After all, SMEs account for 99% of all businesses in Ireland and play a huge role in our economy.
"The iHub, since it opened its doors back in 2006, has helped to support 286 full-time jobs and 82 part-time jobs. 55% of companies have engaged in research when located in the iHub (mainly innovation vouchers and internships) and 76% of iHub clients are still in business after seven years.”
Maria added: "We would have been very busy from 2007-08 onwards. We ramped up and we’ve been nearly 100% occupied from that time onwards. But when the pandemic hit, it changed as people couldn’t come into the building. We shut for two months but we reopened again with all procedures in place. People had to come in at different times and we requested only those who had to come in, come in.
"But since restrictions have eased, people have been trickling back. Things might change in terms of more hot desking. Our main thing before the pandemic was we’d rent out offices for start-ups. When the pandemic hit, we had to convert a lot more hot desking spaces."
With more individuals coming to use hubs for remote working, Maria believes a change in style might be needed going forward.
"There are a lot more individuals and people working for companies looking for a desk. We try to facilitate as best we could. We’re waiting to see how it will pan out."
REMOTE WORKING
Fergal Dunne, who works for stocktaking company Retail Stock Taking, has been living in Castlebar for around 25 years and is among the remote workers who operate out of the GMIT iHub. Before the term 'remote working' was part of our daily lives, Fergal would be travelling close to 60,000km a year, with his work taking him anywhere across the country.
It has helped not just work, but family life. Fergal has three young children and helps out with Castlebar Rugby Club and soccer club Snugboro United.
The line of work means there is still a requirement to be on site every day, but the company has now developed new technologies where a lot of their work can now be done remotely.
"Hospitality is mostly what we do on retail. The technology they have on board, we can now link in with. Travel is still involved but not as much. Things that were in the pipeline for many years have become common place."
Fergal called the GMIT iHub a great facility and made a special mention about the New Frontiers programme, one of the support programmes the hub is operating.
Funded by Enterprise Ireland, it is Ireland’s national entrepreneur development programme delivered in the west of Ireland and provides an optimised business start-up process to people with innovation for large markets. Among some notable start-ups include Foodie Save from Castlebar native Eoin Heverin and CB Media by Cynthia Baloula.
Baloula, the founder and managing director at CB Media and The Video Marketing Academy, works out of the Gteic hub in Belmullet where she rents an office with her team of two people so they can work together.
She moved from Dublin to Belmullet two years ago during the first lockdown in 2020 with her partner (whose parents were from Belmullet), and their now two-year-old daughter and Baloula revealed she can fully run the business remotely.
"We didn't want to stay in the city with the lockdown and we decided to move to the west. It's a huge difference but it's lovely. People are nice. It's a quieter way of life but I'm really enjoying it. It's good for my daughter too," said Cynthia. "It's a great opportunity (in the hub) to network with other business owners and other businesses so we don't feel isolated. It's a great set up and it makes running a business easy."
"What we do is a coaching business. We coach business owners, sales and marketing teams on how to produce professional looking videos by just using their phone and computer and how to promote their videos online to attract clients. It's all done online. We have clients in the US, UK and Ireland."
Cynthia believes remote working is here to stay, one way or another. "I think it works really well. I think it's here to stay, even if companies are not 100% remote and use hybrid models. The possibilities and flexibility it gives us is just amazing. I can also spend more time with my daughter," Cynthia concluded.