The importance of Irish Digital Hubs & other startup insights, Gary O’Meara, Meath Enterprise

Interesting interview and insights with Gary O’Meara, from Meath Enterprise, covering the importance of Irish Digital Hubs as well as discussing startup life and how to be resilient in corona times.

What is your own background briefly?

My parents were very entrepreneurial, constantly reinventing themselves and their businesses so growing up I quickly learned that change, disruption and risk taking were all positive and necessary attributes.

I was always passionate about starting, managing and leading new business ventures and projects and while I experienced some major failures along the way I have been lucky enough to learn, evolve and enjoy many successes in so many different sectors such as transport, logistics, recruitment, media, tourism, property and sports.

Immediately before taking up my current role with Meath Enterprise in 2012, I was limping from one consulting job to the next providing business development, training and coaching services to Startups, SMEs and Community / Social Enterprises who could afford to pay as well as those who couldn’t. The financial crisis had decimated my investment portfolio, along with my latest commercial venture into logistics which was shut down in August 2010.

I was definitely questioning my decision to leave my native Dublin in 2007 to start a family and explore a different way of living and working from rural Meath. Myself and my wife Natalie, who is originally from London, believed a move away from the hustle, bustle and gridlock of the city could potentially support our vision for a better quality of life, health and well-being but the financial crisis and those endless daily commutes back into the city for almost 5 years made such a vision extremely challenging.

Irish Digital Hubs & other startup insights, Gary O’Meara, Meath Enterprise

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

Prior to 2012, my background was definitely varied and always frantic. It was normal for me to have multiple jobs, businesses, projects or hobbies on the go at any one time and volunteering with the local sports club or community association was always a given, I definitely wasn’t good at saying no!

Little has changed really apart from the fact that everything I do now, as chaotic as it can probably appear from the outside, is, for me anyway, far more structured and purposeful than anything else I have ever done. Being totally submerged in the complexities, politics and challenges of local, regional and national enterprise development present me with such amazing opportunities to constantly strive to reach new levels personally while also having a very real and meaningful impact on the wider community.

Making it easier for people to work closer to where they live, be more engaged and involved in family life, participate more in their local communities and make the world a slightly better place for their children is a worthwhile mission, that found me out of necessity, and this is what inspires and drives me to do what I do.

How was the last 12 months? What were your big wins?

They have been typically chaotic and challenging but totally rewarding.

In May 2019 Meath Enterprise launched the 2019 Global Startup Ecosystem Report at Kells Tech in the presence of An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Ministers, public and private sector stakeholders/partners catapulting the Mid-East Region on the world stage as a Top 10 Activation Ecosystem for Food/Ag-Tech.

Unfortunately, I spent the vast majority of summer 2019 in hospital operating theatres as multiple health issues caught up with me at once however I was lucky to emerge from the experience stronger and even more determined to find that ultimate work life balance as remote and flexible working quickly became my new normal.

By September 2019 Meath Enterprise was planning for the development of multiple new and existing projects such as the Boyne Valley Food Hub, the Kells Tech Hub, the proposed new Digital Innovation & Smart Agri Hub, the new Dunshaughlin Coworking Hub and the inaugural Regional Enterprise Summit which would be the highlight event of Meath Enterprise Week (an annual celebration and promotion of entrepreneurship that coincides and partners with Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) every November).

October 2019 saw the culmination of almost 18 months of intense engagement, collaboration and change as we launched a new Strategic Plan for NACEC (National Association of Community Enterprise Centres) at the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation with the support of Ministers Humphreys and Breen.

I was also invited to speak at the official launch of the OECDs SME and Entrepreneurship Policy Report for Ireland where I presented my vision for local, regional and national enterprise and ecosystem development.

In December 2019, Meath Enterprise were delighted to be involved with the One Level Up Summit which welcomed over 250 international scaleup accelerators to Dublin for 3 days of amazing business scaling masterclasses, events and networking. EO Ireland brought the event to Dublin and Meath Enterprise are the national partner for the EO Accelerator in Ireland.

What would you have done differently?

Honestly, no. I genuinely never look back and wish I could change something I did or something that happened. Every decision I make, good or bad, presents new opportunities to learn, grow and succeed in different ways. As long as I can learn from the mistakes of the past, and survive the worst of them, then the experience is always worthwhile and will definitely help me better appreciate and recognise the abundance of opportunities that are around almost every corner.

How are you managing during these corona times?

Like the rest of the world, the vast majority of my time these days is spent at home on Zoom, MS Teams, Skype etc and its extremely challenging, especially with a young family. I’ve been very lucky to be able to enjoy a blended approach to working for many years and find I get my best work done from the kitchen between 5.30-7.30am when the kids are still in bed and nobody is phoning or emailing me.

Then the dancing shoes go on and I’m gone for the day – office, meetings, events, every day is different and there’s nearly always something new happening. Being in lockdown has been hard, we are remote working out of necessity not choice and I have found it to be very intense, draining and isolating.

I’m very lucky that my place of work or my office is only 7 mins drive from where I live and the only time I ever really end up in commuter gridlock these days is when I’m attending meetings or events in the city or other parts of the country.

Why did you get involved with digital hubs & enterprise centres?

Sometimes when I look back to 2012 and the challenges I was facing then, which are not very different to the challenges many people are facing today (long commutes, very poor work life balance, totally disconnected from the community I was living in and sometimes from my own family and so on….) I like to think that this role found me, saved me and now I have a responsibility to do what I can to help create a county or a country where more and more people can work closer to where they live, doing work they enjoy and earning a decent wage.

Hubs, if managed correctly, have the potential to really drive economic activity and social prosperity throughout our regions and across rural Ireland and I believe NACEC is now very well placed to help make these new future of work opportunities a reality.

In some ways covid-19 is promoting remote working, which could help digital hubs etc, and yet it might also not help too. Which way should we look at the impact of social distancing and corona possibly persisting till 2021 and perhaps beyond?

I think Covid-19 has definitely changed people’s opinions of remote working and more than ever people and organisations realise that it far more realistic an option that they realised. The tech is certainly there to support remote working of some sort, and that been the case for years, but its not for every job and I think Covid-19 has made many realise that its not for every person either.

I think a hybrid or blended approach to flexible working is the future where people from across the public and private sectors will be able to work from home and hub and possibly the office when really necessary. The challenge for hubs is to be ready to facilitate this new hybrid working model by providing clean, safe and professionally managed services and facilities that can meet the requirements of a varied client base which might include Startups, SMEs, staff and executives from large Corporates or MNCs as well as public sector employees, social enterprises and education / training providers.

Hubs need to be connected, flexible, highly adaptable and an important driver and facilitator of community and regional economic, enterprise and ecosystem development where structured learning, collaboration, innovation, diversity, inclusion and sustainability are core values that all stakeholders can embrace.

In what ways are there potentially positive outcomes from all of the current lockdown issues for Irish enterprise & digital hubs?

I envisage a future where all state-funded enterprise, food, tech, digital & coworking hubs, community-owned not-for-profit hubs, university hubs and local privately-owned Irish hubs can work together to provide longer term flexible working solutions to our MNCs, large corporates, SMEs, micro-businesses, startups and the public sector while also supporting and promoting community enterprise, regional development, better work-life balance and the environment in a structured and sustainable way.

While many challenges may exist in terms of funding & resourcing such a vision I think these conversations are worth having and the solutions are worth finding. NACEC fully intends to facilitate such discussions & deliver subsequent actions so that together we can help make these new future of work opportunities a reality.

How can people find out more about you personally & your work?

Follow and engage with me directly on social media (Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook & Instagram mainly).

Who and where do you get inspiration from?

I’ve always struggled with this question mainly because there’s no single person or thing that inspires me. My inspiration comes from everywhere; from my amazing children who every single day help me remember who I am and what really matters; from my wonderful who is my absolute rock when things are toughest and I’m at my weakest.

From everybody I know or meet who leads or helps others not because they want or expect something in return but because they can; from those who speak up for and stand up for those less fortunate because it’s the right thing to do; from anybody who follows their dreams with true grit, passion and determination regardless of whether they win or loose.

Sometimes I’m inspired by books, movies, music, articles or whatever else I can see, hear or feel but I think that comes down to a mindset or your view of the world at any given moment, thankfully I’m always viewing the glass as half full.

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