Ireland’s Brightest Sparks Compete for €25,000 Prize Fund at Web Summit

The deadline for entries for the 2015 ESB Spark of Genius Award at this year’s Web Summit is fast approaching with all entries due before midnight on Tuesday September 1st. A shortlist of 15 finalists will be announced on September 4th with all finalists pitching their business plans to a panel of judges at Web Summit HQ on the evening of Wednesday September 16th. The three finalists will go on to feature in a pitch competition at Web Summit in the RDS in November and the winner of the €25,000 prize fund will be announced live on stage.

The ESB Spark of Genius Award focuses on high potential technology start-ups and is open to any Irish start-up which has been in operation for less than 3 years and has received under €1 million in funding to date.  Entrants will be judged on the uniqueness of their idea, their level of development thus far, and their potential for future growth.

Past winners of the ESB Spark of Genius Award include Love & Robots, Viddyad and SmartThings which was recently acquired by Samsung for a reported $200m, and Datahug.

More than 22,000 people from over 100 countries will attend Web Summit this year. Keynote speakers include John Collison of Stripe, Ed Catmull of Pixar and Chris Froome, Tour de France winner.

ESB Spark of Genius applications are open here until midnight September 1, 2015.

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