The aim of Dungarvan Enterprise Centre is to stimulate and encourage enterprise in West Waterford, while acting as a support to the local business community. The centre achieves this through letting affordable office space, meeting room hire, training, mentoring and event management. The centre offers a number of free services to start-up and growing businesses including flyer display, promotion through our newsletter and social media sites, general business advice and facilitation of networking and seminars. The centre also offers affordable practical business training and has provided training in areas as diverse as social media, cloud computing, self-effectiveness, e-tendering and marketing over the last year. To date the centre has provided training to over 100 local businesses.
The office spaces at the centre are of a very high spec and are offered at affordable rates, starting at €180 per month including management fee and VAT. The centre also offers subsidised high speed broadband with speeds of up to 120mg and VOIP telephony, with built-in IT support. “We are delighted to have eight businesses on board to date, this equates to 18 people employed within the centre,” says Mags Durand O’Connor, centre manager, “We have also provided room hire to a variety of clients including FAS, LEADER and Waterford WEN, numbering over 200 people having accessed our facilities over the past year. We have been fortunate to work closely with Waterford County Enterprise Board, Dungarvan Chamber and Waterford County Council in our endeavours and we will continue to do so in our mission to find practical means of supporting business in the local community.”
The next big project for the centre is a Coder Dojo in association with Waterford County Enterprise Board, who are driving the initiative through their Student Enterprise Programme. This free programme which helps children to develop essential IT skills will be available from January. The centre has already received a generous donation of two laptops for the programme from TQS Integration and would ask any other businesses who might be able to donate old laptops to get in touch with the centre as it is the aim of the programme to be inclusive.
