Brown Thomas Arnotts has launched Pitch 23. A competition for Irish start-ups, small businesses, designers, makers and entrepreneurs based in either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland who operate within the area of fashion. The winning pitch will be given the opportunity to be placed in-store and online in Arnotts at Christmas and they will … Continue reading Brown Thomas Arnotts launches start-up competition Pitch’23

Family carers are often forgotten about in terms of advocating for people in the Diversity and Inclusion area. However, Count On Us Recruitment was started by Fiona O'Neill, after her own experiences trying to find employment as a Family Carer, while sticking to the guidelines.   The company now works with family carers to provide … Continue reading Count On Us Recruitment – providing mentoring to family carers and matching them to empathetic employers

Hackathons are back! I was delighted to be asked to be a mentor for Techstars Start-up Weekend Dublin. The event, which is taking place in Accenture Song from the 24th to the 26th of March, is aimed at women who are interested in starting a business or being part of a team that will create … Continue reading Techstars Startup Weekend Women Dublin is back!

In 2023, The Dyslexia Assocation of Ireland, with funding from The Toy Show Appeal, lauched The Dyslexia Hub, a hub of information for young people and their parents or guardians to learn more about dyslexia and empowering them to understand the condition, in addition to providing information on technologies that could aid them and how … Continue reading The Dyslexia Hub – A hub for people to learn more about dyslexia by providing young people and parents with accessible information

Loretta Dignam created The Menopause Hub in 2018, after going through her own menopause and realising the lack of support and information women receive about the process. Loretta and her team have now developed the company providing clinics for women of all ages experiencing menopause, workplace training and advocating for women experiencing menopause. The company … Continue reading The Menopause Hub – Helping women of all ages experiencing menopause and training employers on how to support these women

Launched in 2021, Sinead Ryan saw the need for Little fitness after a chance encounter with a pair of brothers who were living in temporary housing and joined one of her fitness classes. She envisioned a programme that would bring primary-age children from homeless families together to learn about their bodies, health, and nutrition, and … Continue reading Little Fitness – An inclusive programme for all children and families living in emergency accommodation, or socially disadvantaged

Launched in 2022, Pauline Kwasniak and Rajat Maheshwari conducted research with  corporate CSR and social ambition managers and then reached out to not-for-profits to find out if there was a better solution for for-profit companies that match your organisation with verified charitable projects and reputable charities that make a tangible social impact in their communities. … Continue reading Finedeeds – Creating a ripple effect of goodness for corporations, their employees, donors, and nonprofits

Formed in 2001, Rugby Players Ireland’s remit is to act as the collective voice for professional rugby players in Ireland. A representative body at heart, the association also boasts a world-leading Player Development Programme (PDP) which has become a reference point for other sporting bodies across the globe. The PDP enables players to fulfil their potential both on … Continue reading Tackle Your Feelings, a campaign that is increasing the mental wellbeing of school students, professionals in the workplace and rugby players at all levels

According to their own data “Of the 55,000 people in Ireland who are blind or vision impaired, just 5% or approximately 2,750 of those are blind. This means that approximately 52,250 people across the country have a form of vision impairment or are affected by sight loss in some way. The impact of vision impairment … Continue reading The NCBI working to reduce unemployment amongst the blind community

Matt McCann founded Access Earth in 2015, as he found it difficult to travel and ensure that the places he's visiting had the required accessibility information for him to access with his mobility aids. What started out as an idea in the Microsoft’s Imagine cup has now turned into an accessibility enablement platform that will … Continue reading Access Earth – creating the world’s largest database of accessiblity information, so everyone can plan their adventures and experience what the world has to offer.

Created in 2015, The Code Institute is one of the most successful companies in the Edtech sector. It specialises in being a "a global leader in delivering coding skills that help people switch to a career in software development within a year. Demand for software developers is rapidly escalating as digitisation accelerates, and hundreds of … Continue reading The Code Institute – helping to bridge the skills gap for underrepresented groups in the tech sector

A unique business, CWIT was created in 2009 by the Irish subsidiaries of Accenture, Dell Technologies and Microsoft in order to address the gender imbalance in technology companies. 13 year on, it’s grown to over 20 members, with most of the major technology companies in Ireland within that membership. The company is now on a … Continue reading CWIT – An Irish company that’s reducing the gender gap for women in technology-based companies now, and for generations to come

Colin Mac Andrias is a former diving instructor and course director at Professional Association of Diving Instructors. Having previously been based in London and Egypt, Colin sold his house in London and moved back to their native Dublin to create First Swim, Ireland's first purpose built swimming factilate built to specifically for babies and toddlers … Continue reading First Swim – The first purpose built baby and todler swimming facility in Ireland

You often hear of the problem of single use plastic. However another issue Kevin Murphy spotted was good quality compostable paper cups been thrown away by the consumer. He created 2GoCup a reuseable cup solution for coffee shops and other retail outlets to reduce the amount of cups going to landfill and increase sustainability in … Continue reading 2GoCup- reducing single use cups and increasing sustainability in the coffee sector

1 in 444 babies born in Ireland are born with Down syndrome. Down syndrome happens when you are born with an extra chromosome inside your body. Down syndrome affects everyone differently, but it does have an impact on physical, mental, and emotional development and can be diagnosed with other conditions too. With unemployment rates at … Continue reading Down Syndrome Ireland – advocating for people with Down Syndrome, their families and professionals

Co-Founders China and Liswa met while studying in NUI Galway. Having spotted a gap in the fashion market for African designed fashion brands the two women decided to create Umoja Production but later rebranded  the company to Umoja linn (Umoja means Unity in Swahili, and linn means ‘by us’ in Irish). The pair have created … Continue reading Umoja linn creating a marketplace to make African fashions more accessible to the public

The Irish job coaching market has gone from strength to strength in recent times, as companies increase their talent pool by tapping into under-represented groups. I have previously wrote an article for Thinkbusiness.ie about job coaching services available to people with disabilities in Ireland. However Rangam is the latest entrant into the market. ThinkBusiness.ie described … Continue reading Rangam – Global inclusion job coaching service for people from under-represented groups opens in Ireland

YourY Network, founded by Leyla Karaha, aims to build a supportive community for social entrepreneurs. After experiencing the isolation that often comes with founding a business, Leyla launched the network to create an inclusive space for social innovators. YourY Network stands out for its organic approach to diversity and its commitment to empowering underrepresented groups … Continue reading YourY Network – creating a community for social entrepreneurs through events and networking

One of the most successful social enterprises in Ireland, The Shona Project works with schools and organisations for young people, to help teenaged girls to in their words “Figuring out who we are, and where we fit into this world is hard, and there are so many challenges; anxiety, depression, body image, self-esteem, boys, family … Continue reading Shona.ie Helping Irish teenaged girls figure things out

To someone who may not be aware, what is Good Day Cork? What service do you provide? Good Day Cork is a digital magazine that amplifies un-represented voices. It was launched as a print magazine in 2018 through a crowd-funding campaign. Four issues have been published since Sept 2018. In 2020, we moved to the … Continue reading Good Day Cork Amplifying un-represented voices in the rebel county

Tech for Good Dublin was launched in 2017 as a way to bring people together and explore the possibilities of tech for social impact. Since launching they have gone from strength to strength, holding networking events, highlighting projects with purpose and creating training and hackathon events. A recent event led to the development of online … Continue reading TechForGood – Connecting the tech community in Ireland with causes they can empower

Employers For Change was founded in March 2021 and provides advice and guidance to employers who want to hire people with disabilities. We caught up with Christabelle Feeney, Director of Employers for Change to find out more: How did Employers for Change begin? Employers for Change is a project funded by the Department of Children, … Continue reading Employers For Change – Assisting employers in employing people with disabilities

Can you tell us how Community Finance Ireland began? A reduction in grants being made available to community enterprise projects in Northern Ireland and the southern Border Counties subsequent to the Peace Process, sparked a need to develop an alternative source of capital finance to the existing banking infrastructure, which for various reasons was not … Continue reading Community Finance Ireland – Supporting social enterprise on the island of Ireland