The finals for Foróige Youth Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 took place last week in the Lighthouse Cinema.
Conor Stinchon, aged 16, from Sligo took the title of Foróige Youth Entrepreneur of the Year 2019, for his business Gaelic Superstore.
A passion for GAA is at the core of Conor Stinchon’s business Gaelic Superstore, which was established after he sold an Instagram page he had set up based on GAA updates. He started to create designs on paper, with different colours. This led to the creation of Gaelic Superstore which offers personalised GAA gloves which can be customised for club, school and county teams. Conor’s vision for Gaelic Superstore is to be the number one glove company in Ireland with a proven track record of quality at the highest level, and customer satisfaction which is unrivalled.
Sean Campbell, CEO Foróige said “The NFTE Programme changes the lives of young people by enabling them to develop core skills in business and enterprise, and in doing so, helping them to unlock their individual talents and potential. It puts the career path of 'entrepreneur' firmly in the sights of the young participants and gives them an 'I can and I will' attitude that is quite remarkable
“We have been very fortunate to receive funding from the Department of Education and Skills to grow the Foróige NFTE programme with a focus on engaging DEIS Schools around the country. Foróige is immensely proud of how successful the programme has become, with over 3,000 young people participating.
“As part of their learning, the young entrepreneurs participate in business plan competitions in their schools, regions and at semi-final level. 110 local competitions, led to 20 regional finals, and several semi-finals.
“All of these competitions paved the way to the National Awards today where 45 youth businesses, from all over the country, pitched their businesses to a prestigious panel of judges to compete for the title of Youth Entrepreneur of the Year 2019.
“The winning groups will receive a mentoring package from Microsoft tailored to the needs of their business and also have the amazing opportunity of representing Ireland in the European Awards in Barcelona in November”.
