The future is looking bright for Milltownpass-native, Dean Gammell, who picked up the award for ‘Best Established Business’ at the grand final of the Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition at Google’s European headquarters in Dublin last Sunday.
Dean and his savvy group booking system, The Group System, won the award, winning a total of €30,000 investment fund for his business through the Local Enterprise Offices. The Minister for Jobs, Richard Bruton made the announcement in front of 350 guests at the first-ever national final.
Following his big win, 28-year-old Dean spoke of what it will mean for the future of his business, which is based in Kinnegad. “With a prize of €30,000 we’ll be able to take on more staff. We’ve a goal of having forty people employed by the end of 2015.” On the expansion of the business, Dean shared his prospects for the coming months. “We’ve already expanded in the United Kingdom and the United States is going to be a key area of expansion in 2015.”
On Sunday’s award ceremony, Minister Bruton spoke of the importance of youth entrepreneurship and its key to job creation. “In Ireland we have great entrepreneurs – we just don’t have enough of them. Two thirds of all new jobs are created by start-ups and so we must encourage more young people to consider starting a business as a career choice – to become the job creators of the future.
Mr. Bruton also congratulated Dean and the other winners and entrants.
“On behalf of the Government, I’d like to congratulate Dean Gammell from The Group System on winning the ‘Best Established Business’ award.
Christine Charlton of the Local Enterprise Office Westmeath congratulated the young entrepreneur, saying: “We are all incredibly proud of what Dean and The Group System have achieved. Since the doors of the Local Enterprise Office first opened for business earlier this year, we’ve been supporting many entrepreneurs and new start-ups, just like The Group System, helping them on their business journey. For those young entrepreneurs involved in this year’s competition and for anyone else considering starting a business, the doors of the Local Enterprise Office are always open.”
In all, 24 finalists from 17 counties competed for the overall title and 9 of them made a live pitch to the judging panel at today’s final round at the Foundry in Google.
