22 November 2023
Ireland’s National Hub Summit is the go-to conference for anyone involved or interested in the Irish Hub sector. It brings together international and Irish speakers, hub teams, representative bodies, state agencies and government departments to discuss the future of the National Hub Network in Ireland.
The Hub Summit 2023 was held on 22 November in Tullamore.
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Summit Schedule
Tuesday, 21 November 2023
WHAT | When/Where | Details |
Pre Registration | 4pm to 7pm - Hotel Reception | Arriving early? - beat the morning rush and pick up your Summit badge. |
The Coworking Game | 5pm to 7pm - Restaurant | Join us for a fun and informal workshop led by the Coworkies team of Pauline Roussel and Dimitar Inchev. ‘The CoWorking Game’ will invite you to create a new coworking concept from scratch. Work with other hub teams and discover new ways of thinking about community impact and business models. We’ll provide tea, coffee and biscuits to keep your energy levels up! |
Meet & Mingle | 7pm - late - Bar area | Find our reserved area in the bar to meet up with fellow Hubbers and say hi to our Hub Summit speakers. |
Wednesday, 22 November 2023
WHAT | When/Where | Details |
Registration | 9am to 9.45am Hotel Reception | Our Summit Registration desk is in the foyer of the hotel reception. Then it’s on to our networking area where you can meet and mingle with attendees and visit the exhibitor stands. |
Morning Plenary Session | 9.45am DE Williams Suite | Keynote Speakers Simon Coveney, TD Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment Brendan Whelan, Department of Rural & Community Development Stephen Carolan, Connected Hubs Yoshio Tsuda, ‘Morino-Office’ Hub, Fujimi, Japan |
Break | 10.50am | |
National Hub Strategy Stages | 11.10am | Enterprise Stage Join Mary McKenna: Serial Tech Entrepreneur & Angel Investor & Co-Founder of Awaken Hub; Fergal McPartland of The Food Hub Drumshanbo and hear from Patrick Rigby of The Shed Distillery of PJ Rigney who took his business from 1 employee to 100 with the support of The Food Hub. Speakers will be looking at the challenges facing founders in 2024 and beyond while also exploring how hubs can best support them. |
Climate Action Stage Hans Zomer, CEO of Global Action Plan Ireland will lead this workshop on ‘The Power of Small Steps’. Aimed at empowering hubs to develop their own climate action plans, Hans will also explore the supports available and identify areas of cooperation for hubs and communities. | ||
Lunch & Networking | 12.25pm | Lunch in the restaurant, followed by tea & coffee in the networking area, and a second chance to visit our exhibitor stands |
Afternoon Plenary Session | 1.55pm | Keynote Speakers Heather Humphreys, TD, Minister for Rural & Community Development Mary Hurley, Department of Rural & Community Development |
Break | 2.25pm | |
National Hub Strategy Stages | 2.40pm | Employment Stage John O’Duinn, strategist and author of ‘Distributed Teams’, brings his US and international experience to this stage. Using examples John will discuss employment trends and the global shift to remote and distributed teams. John will invite delegates to get involved in the discussion on what this means for hubs and the Hub Strategy. |
Community Stage Pauline Roussel & Dimitar Inchev, co-founders of Coworkies and authors of ‘Around the World in 250 Coworking Spaces’ will lead an interactive session on the positive impact of coworking spaces on communities around the world. Using examples from their travels, they will look at how hubs in Ireland can replicate successful models to grow and support their communities. The team will be joined by Japanese hub manager, Yoshio Tsuda. | ||
Evening Plenary & Close | 3.55pm | Wrap up |
Informal Networking | 4.30pm | A final opportunity to catch up and network |
Hub Summit Speakers
Heather Humphreys, TD
Minister for Rural & Community Development
Minister for Social Protection
Simon Coveney, TD
Minister for Enterprise, Trade
& Employment
Mary Hurley
Secretary General of the Department of Rural and Community Development
Brendan Whelan
Principal Officer,
Regional Development & Innovation Unit
DRCD
Fintan O’Brien
Assistant Secretary for Rural Development and Regional Affairs
Allan Mulrooney
CEO,
Western Development Commission
Stephen Carolan
National Hub Network Programme Manager, Connected Hubs
Deirdre Frost
Policy Analyst,
Western Development Commission
Gary Clarke
Community and Business Development Manager
Creative Spark Enterprise FabLab
Liam Horan
Summit MC
National Hubs Executive
Connected Hubs
Pauline Leonard
Summit MC: Atlantic Economic Corridor Project Executive, Western Development Commission
Enterprise Stage
Mary McKenna
Serial Tech Entrepreneur & Angel Investor
Co-Founder of Awaken Hub
Mary McKenna is an Irish exited serial tech entrepreneur and angel investor. She co-founded successful online learning company Learning Pool in Derry and since selling Learning Pool has worked extensively with early stage startups and scaleups across the entire European ecosystem. She has angel invested in 25 or so early stage tech startups to date and in July 2020 she co-founded social enterprise AwakenHub, an all-Ireland female founder community. AwakenHub has 3,000 members and has just launched Ireland’s first and only women-led angel syndicate, AwakenAngels.
Mary is a distinguished visiting Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Oxford and she is both the European Female Business Angel of the Year 2023 and the UK Business Angels Association UK Angel of the Year 2023/24. Mary works as an Innovation Expert for the EU on their flagship €9bn EIC Accelerator, part of Horizon Europe. She is a visible role model, commentator and speaker, well respected in the EU’s tech community and frequently quoted in the media.
Mary was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2014 New Year’s Honours for services to digital technology, innovation and learning.
Fergal McPartland
Manager, The Food Hub
Drumshanbo
Patrick J Rigney
Managing Director & Founder
The Shed Distillery of PJ Rigney
Climate Action Stage
Hans Zomer
CEO, Global Action Plan Ireland
Global Action Plan is an environmental organisation that focuses on behaviour change. Their vision is that people in Ireland have the knowledge, skills and motivation to make sustainable lifestyle choices within their communities to realise a better future for our planet and for the people that depend on it.
Hans was named ‘Environmental Services CEO of the Year 2023 - Dublin’ at the CEO of the Year Awards in November 2023.
Hans joins the National Hub Summit to lead a practical workshop on climate action in hubs - how small actions can lead to big impacts.
Employment Stage
John O’Duinn
Strategist & Author
John is a senior technologist, mentor and author who has worked in distributed companies of one form or another for 32 years, led distributed teams for 17 years, run workshops and mentored distributed teams for 10 years. His book “Distributed Teams: The Art and Practice of Working Together While Physically Apart” was first published in 2018, with a fully updated second edition published in January 2021.
In April 2022, John joined the U.S. General Services Administration as a Senior Advisor helping with various “Future of Work” initiatives, including the U.S. President's Management Agenda. This is John’s second time in public service - his first time was in the U.S. Digital Service in the Obama White House, as a computer systems engineer working on a range of technical projects.
John helped the State of Vermont write their 2018 "Remote Worker" law encouraging remote work to promote economic growth and the State of California with their 2021 Telework Policy. John has lived and worked in 13 cities across four continents, loves travel, and is on track to fill his passport again.
Community Stage
Pauline Roussel & Dimitar Inchev
Co-founders of Coworkies Ltd
Authors of “Around The World in 250 Coworking Spaces”
Pauline & Dimitar are co-authors of the book “Around the World in 250 Coworking Spaces” and expert in the field of coworking spaces. With years of experience running a coworking space in Berlin and extensive research and travel to over 500 coworking spaces across 50 cities, they have gained deep insights into the uniqueness, importance, and impact of collaborative work environments on people and communities. Their mission is to make coworking better by understanding the diverse ways in which coworking spaces foster collaboration and connections. They join Ireland’s National Hub Summit to talk about the positive impact of coworking spaces around the world.
Yoshio Tsuda
Founder and director of coworking space "Morino-Office" in Fujimi, Nagano, Japan
Morino-Office is a coworking space which started in 2015 in a small town in a rural area of Japan, nestled in the mountains 2.5 hours away from Tokyo.
Yoshio will share his journey from how he started a coworking space in a remote environment back in 2015 and gradually changed the landscape of his town by educating, empowering and bringing together the different communities that gravitate around Morino-Office.
Sign up news on our next Hub Summit
The National Hub Summit is hosted by Connected Hubs, the Department of Rural and Community Development, and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
