Global members of Sandbox at the Sandbox Global Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in January 2012. Image courtesy of Sandbox
Sandbox, the global network for young innovators under the age of 30, is launching a Dublin hub next week. There will be a plethora of young entrepreneurs from ventures such as Podio, Lemon.com, Groupspaces, Erudify, Lutebox and Spinnakr in Ireland to network and share their stories.
For instance, Keyun Ruan, founder of the cloud forensics site Xensix, and Bjorn Lasse Herrmann, one of the co-founders of Start-Up Genome, and founder of Blackbox Mansion, will be in Ireland next week for the Dublin launch. Start-Up Genome is aiming to map out a global start-up database for entrepreneurs and investors.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, TD, will be at the official launch of Sandbox in Dublin’s Mansion House on 19 April.
Sandbox itself came to fruition in Zurich in 2009 as a means of giving young achievers a type of networking ecosystem to help them make a difference in their home countries and on a global level before they reach the age of 30.
The network how has more than 650 members globally. On the Irish side, John Egan, the founder of Archipelago, will be Sandbox’s Dublin ambassador.
Egan, who also runs the Archie Talks event series for self-starters under the age of 35, said that for Sandbox to choose Dublin as its next international hub is a great credit to Ireland’s young business community.
“One of our first missions will be to help remove some of the obstacles that we face at home by introducing the best and brightest Irish entrepreneurs to some of their peers in other countries around the world,” he said.
On Monday, Archie Talks will hold an event in the Factory on Barrow Street, which will feature Sandboxers such as William McQuillan, CEO and co-founder of Osmoda; Tia Kansara, founder of Kansara Hackney; and Bel Besce, head of business development at the Silicon Valley-based Lemon.com. Pesce was recently made a TED fellow.
Then, on Wednesday, five young women social entrepreneurs will take to the stage in Science Gallery to discuss their enterprises.
They will include Kalsoom Lakhani from Invest2Innovate; Melissa Richer from Ayllu Initiative; Niamh Hughes from So What’s On Your Plate; Tara Yip-Bannicq from Future Generations; Kyra Maya Phillips from The Misfit Economy and Niamh Gallagher from Women for Election.
